Finding Petrified Wood in Southeastern Utah

[Sagebrush Steve]

Several years ago a few friends and I went out to southeastern Utah for a week of landscape photography.  We weren’t there to explore for fossils, but at one location, a place called Andy Miller Flats, I found abundant petrified wood.  Whoever named the place must have been an unscrupulous land agent hoping to dupe unsuspecting easterners into buying “a place out west.”  The only thing flat here will be your car’s tires after you drive carelessly over its unimproved dirt roads.  It really is remote.  When I wrote my book Outdoor Navigation with GPS I used the photo of the solo hiker below as a chapter header in the section about recovering from disaster.  I will give you a brief flavor of the trip and even give you approximate GPS coordinates because I know most of you will never get there and those who do will be sensible collectors.

 

Petrified wood is abundant throughout southern Utah but you need to be aware of collecting laws.  You can collect small amounts for personal use within lands managed by the BLM, but not in national parks or recreation areas.  The part of Andy Miller Flats we visited straddles the line between the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and BLM lands.  I kept only a few pieces (I was already lugging heavy camera gear), all collected north of the park boundary.

 

To get there, we drove east on Utah 24 from Capitol Reef National Park and turned south on US95 at Hanksville.  About a mile before crossing the Colorado River at the towering steel arch bridge near Hite, we took a dirt road heading east.  After many miles, this road eventually reaches the Maze District of Canyonlands National Park, one of the most remote locations in the continental United States.  Well before that, though, the road turns into a rough four-wheel-drive trail.  We didn’t need 4WD for our journey, but high clearance was important. 

 

We took the road about 9 miles, traveling along the west side of Rock Canyon, a usually dry gully.  The location I show on the map is north of the park boundary.  The petrified wood is in the floor of the gully, scattered among the rocks.  A lot of it is black, although some, like the piece in the photo, is reddish brown.  I believe it is Araucarioxylon arizonicum, which is the primary wood found in Arizona’s Petrified Forest National Park.  Here is an interesting link to a paper about that wood: Araucarioxylon arizonicum.  I’m not an expert, so if anyone has a different opinion, let me know.

 

The descent to the gully floor is challenging, so be in good shape and don’t go alone.  It was about a 100-foot drop where we went in, mostly a relatively easy descent, but with one area where I first had to lower my pack into the gully, then carefully ease myself down.  There were enough pieces of wood along the floor of the canyon that I could have built a petrified wood campfire if I had the right kind of matches.

 

Like always when descending into Utah slot canyons, check the weather first and don’t descend whenever rain is predicted anywhere in the area.  Here are some photos of the area and one of the pieces of wood.  Sorry I don’t have more, as I said this was not originally intended to be a fossil-collecting expedition so I didn’t document that part very well.

 

View of Rock Canyon from our campsite along the dirt road

 

 

Hiking down into Rock Canyon

 

Map of southeastern Utah showing the location of Andy Miller Flats

 

Snip from USGS 7.5 minute map showing approximate parking spot to access petrified wood. The dashed line near the center of the map is the northern boundary of Glen Canyon National Recreation Area.  Collect only north of that line.

 

Sample of petrified wood

 

[Nimravis]

Steve, great info and pics. I love Utah and have completed a few week long backpacking trips in Zion, Bryce and Grand-Staircase and many day hikes in Arches, Canyonlands and the area around Moab.

[Ridgehiker]

Great report.  Drool!

 

57 minutes ago, Nimravis said:

Steve, great info and pics. I love Utah and have completed a few week long backpacking trips in Zion, Bryce and Grand-Staircase and many day hikes in Arches, Canyonlands and the area around Moab.

 

I've hike many of the same areas and, I barely scratched the surface. Utah is among my favourite top 5 states in the lower 48. 

 

I would sometimes just stop the vehicle, take a compass bearing and walk for a half day. No particular expectation but always came across something 'neat'...interesting topography, wildlife, rocks and fossils, artifacts, etc.

 

It might sound like an odd comparison but parts of Utah have the same feel as parts of the High Arctic in summer. Vast rocky panoramas that seem to go on forever and a positive type of isolation.

[digit]

Spectacular report! Though I may never make it to that location, I appreciate traveling there virtually while reading this post.

 

Welcome to the forum--hope to see more great posts like this from you.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[Plantguy]

Neat report and find. I do miss out west and actually seeing sedimentary layers/uncovered rocks.  Have been poking around my Florida creek finds this past month from the past years fragment piles looking for the odd 1-2" wood fragment...just aint the same as finding a good sized piece but semi-satisfies the urge to go hunting. 

 

Thanks for showing us the geology and pictures. 

Regards, Chris 

[crafterman65]

I hope to go out to some places before the end of this year out in South East Utah to go find some. Only about 4 hours away from where I live. If I do, I will make a report!