In eastern Arizona, Route 66 passes through the only national park the highway ever ran straight through — and it is made of trees that turned to stone.
The Petrified Forest is a graveyard of an ancient world. Around 225 million years ago, in the Late Triassic, this was a humid floodplain crowded with towering conifers. When they fell, some were buried in mud and volcanic ash before they could rot, and over unimaginable time mineral-rich water replaced the wood, cell by cell, with quartz. What’s left are logs of solid stone, split into sections clean as sawn timber, banded in reds and purples and golds where different minerals crept in.
The park also holds a piece of Route 66 itself. The old road ran directly through it, and today a line of leaning telephone poles and a rusting 1932 Studebaker mark the vanished alignment — a modern ruin sitting among ruins hundreds of millions of years older.
For decades the park has fought a quiet war against visitors pocketing the stone; even now, tons of petrified wood are said to disappear each year, one “harmless” piece at a time. The place has a strange gravity. People come to see a forest and find themselves staring at deep time.
Most of Route 66 measures its history in decades. Here, it is measured in eons.
We are offering licences for ROUTE 66® Beer in specific territories. An invitation to others to become part of this story. To carry a piece of the road with them and to contribute to the story. We will share a percentage of royalties with Route 66 associations to keep the story alive.
The journey continues. This story is brought to you by ROUTE 66® BEER. Find us at ROUTE66BEER.COM
BY ENTERING THIS WEBSITE YOU MUST BE AND CONFIRM THAT YOU ARE OF LEGAL DRINKING AGE IN THE COUNTRY THAT YOU ARE IN AND LEGALLY PERMITTED TO VIEW THESE PAGES.
This info is all part of our commitment to responsible drinking.
