Holbrook Things to Do

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The Navajo County Museum is located in the old Navajo County Courthouse and contains a few rooms showing the old courthouse. Hours for the museum are 8 AM to 5 PM Monday through Friday and 8 AM to 4 PM Saturday and Sunday.

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Holbrook is a town of over 5000 located along Interstate 40 in Northwest Arizona. Holbrook is the county seat of Navajo County. Holbrook was established in the early 1880s and was named after the first chief engineer of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad.

The new county courthouse is located on the outskirts of town. The old courthouse is located in the historic district and is now the Navajo County Museum, and is much more interesting architecturally.

The whole Painted Desert actually covers almost 95,000 acres from the Grand Canyon to the part you see in the Petrified Forest National Park. The area was formed by the Chinle Formation, a very soft layer of earth consisting mainly of mud, sandstone, and volcanic ash. The softness of the soil allows for fantastic erosion effects as well as colorful staining by mineralized water flows and mineral deposits over the eons. Various combinations of minerals and decayed plant and animal matter contribute to the various colors seen through the park. The park is continually changing as water and wind erode the area and shift the sediment causing lower layers of fossil and petrified wood to surface. A 10 mile paved road runs throughout the park providing quite a few pull off points with plaques explaining the geology and coloration within the park.

For more info see my Petrified Forest National Park Page.

The Petrified Forest National Park was established in 1906. The park has one of the world's largest and most colorful concentrations of petrified wood, the colorful painted desert, historic structures, archeological sites, and 225 million year old fossils. It is open from 7 AM to 7 PM during the summer and from 8 AM to 5 PM in the winter. The entrance fee is $10 per car. There are 28 miles worth of stops in the park. You can get a map of the park at the North or South entrances. I recommend entering from the North so you can stop at the Visitors' Center. There are gift shops at both the North and South entrances. You can easily spend 3 to 5 hours in the park if you stop at each place of interest depending on how long you stay at each.

For more information see my Petrified Forest National Park Page.

About 50,000 years ago a meteor estimated to be about 150 feet in diameter slammed into the earth about 20 miles west of modern day Winslow, Arizona. The depression is about 0.75 miles in diameter and 550 feet deep. It is one of the better examples of a meteor crater on the planet; but the area is privately owned, and the entry charge ($10 per adult when I went there) is a little steep. They also have a space capsule on site. It has a small museum and a gift shop to part you from more of your money.

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A must see place along the park road is the Painted Desert Inn, nearby Kachina Point. This former road inn - dating back to 1920 - along Route 66 has been restored and is open for visitors.

Painted Desert Inn is situated on the rim overlooking the Painted Desert and was built of petrified wood and other native stone. After the restoration it fits exactly in its surroundings with red colored walls, which do have more or less the same color as the desert nearby.

We enjoyed walking around inside, which still gives a very good impression of the ‘old’ road inn. The dining room still has its original tables and beautifully carved chairs, the kitchen with the blue colored cabinets, the lunchroom, a tap room and the Trading Post Room with hand painted skylight panels. Enjoy the fresh colorful painted walls and the fantastic murals by Hopi artist Kabotie. It is just such a pity the inn doesn’t have any overnight accommodation. I would have loved staying in this place enjoying the views across the Painted Desert from the terrace.

Nowadays this beautiful historic building is ‘only’ a kind of museum, bookstore and small information center, but absolutely a must see sight.

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Painted Desert in the northern part of Petrified Forest National Park is part of a much bigger desert, which stretches from Interstate 40 in a northwest direction all the way to Lake Powell and Tuba City.

This landscape of badlands, hills, mesas and buttes is arid land, sparsely vegetated and heavily eroded. But we had never seen a desert with so many different colors. There are a lot of viewpoints along the park road; all very easy accessible. Some of them allow a view of Pilot Rock, the highest ‘mountain’ in the park. (It is said you even could see the San Francisco Mountain nearby Flagstaff.)

From one of these viewpoints (think it was Whippie Point) I made a short walk into the desert to make a better picture. There is a rim walk between Kachina Point and Tawa Point. It is also possible to do more real wilderness hiking; from Katchina Point - nearby the Painted Desert Inn - a trail leads further into the desert.

Painted Desert means a lot of colors, which are caused by minerals in the soil of the desert. The views of this stunning landscape are simply breathtaking. I highly recommend making at least a couple of stops at the viewpoints, with information boards explaining the geology and coloration.

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The Tepees area is another nice area in Petrified Forest National Park. These cone-shaped clay hills are named after the Indian ‘wigwams’ (although you must have some imagination) and do have remarkable banded colors.
These layers are caused by different kinds of minerals: the cap of the tepees is just clay, white layers are sandstone and reds are iron-stained siltstone.

All together an amazing sight in this arid landscape of eroding badlands. I have to admit that the colors are less saturated than I saw on many pics on the internet (most probably these have been ‘photoshopped’).

There are no real trails, but the tepees are located along the park road and from the car park we had excellent views.