Petrified Forest West Access Trail

Starting Point : Petrified Forest West Boundary Access

Start of Petrified Forest Trail

Exit towards W river road. This is two exits west of the main Medora / Park exit. At the stop sign at the end of the exit ramp you will take a right. It is about 7miles up this road. The road itself curves and branches quite a bit, when i went there were signs directing you the whole way. The road can be quite challenging in the spring when there has been a lot of wash out or if they have recently re-graveled. There are many oil wells along the road so the trucks have done a good job of packing it down

You will find a small parking lot just before the gate to access the trail. The trail starts off flat and than climbs for about 1/2 a mile till you reach a junction. We went to the left and after a a mile including an 1/8 mile drop we found ourselves in the forest. If you stay on the trail it will wind you directly through some amazing petrified trees. It is a large area and I found that wandering a bit off trail got me in groves that I would have missed staying on the path

The brown markers for this trail are about 6 inches across and 4 feet high. They are fairly easy to find. It looks as if they are in the process of putting in wooden post markers. In some places the wooden markers and the brown markers were up.

We hiked up out of the forest grove onto the grasslands and followed them for another 1/2 mile and turned back to our car. The grasslands kept going, my guess is for another 1.5 miles at least.

Petrified Forest from the east

I saw some great butterfly's and birds and lots of crickets.  We saw signs of larger mammals but did not encounter any. 6 other people were on the trail that Sunday, but we never felt crowded.