Petrified Forest Loop

Last Friday Nathan and I hiked the Petrified Forest Loop in Teddy Roosevelt's Wilderness area located on the West side of the Little Missouri River. The hike was fairly easy since the majority of the time we were hiking in the prairie grasslands on the top of a large plateau.


The hike was pretty amazing in terms of wildlife and scenery. We saw plenty of birds, the most exciting of which were the ~300 migrating Sandhill Cranes. Two horses met us at the entrance to the park.


The only annoying thing was that there were bison EVERYWHERE! Yes, I can't believe it's gotten to the point where I was irritated from seeing too MANY of them. They use the trails just as much as we do and, of course, they have the right of way, so we ended up hiking off-trail through the Wilderness Area for a chunk of our trek.


My favorite part of the hike was the actual petrified stumps. I really have no idea how something gets turned from organic matter to stone, so I felt like I was in the middle of an enchanted forest in a Harry Potter novel.




As always, the rock formations were pretty spectacular as well. If you're heading to Teddy Roosevelt and looking for a great dayhike to do, this one would be it!