The more time I spent researching things to do in Theodore Roosevelt National Park, the more must-dos I came up with. It seems this park is just jam-packed with iconic hiking trails – including the Petrified Forest Loop Trail, a ten (or maybe more?) mile loop that passes through expanses of prairie and a valley full of petrified tree stumps. Doing the full loop trail was not on the agenda this time – our small hikers are good for a maximum of four miles at a time – but according to the trail reports I was reading, the really cool petrified wood was located approximately 1.5 miles into the longer hike. Now, a three-mile out-and-back… that we could do.

The trail begins on the prairie. There are broad steppes in every direction – we saw a few wild horses grazing atop one of the buttes.

The trail reports cautioned that the prairie part of the hike was a little boring, but you had to press through it to get to the cool petrified wood. I disagreed – I didn’t think the prairie was boring at all. I kept thinking of Laura Ingalls Wilder in On the Banks of Plum Creek, describing the prairie as being full of little rounded hills, dips and hollows – it’s so much more than just a stretch of flat grass.

At least one person in our group did find the prairie section boring, though. Hiking is not Peanut’s favorite activity. I told her to channel her inner Laura Ingalls. That meant nothing to her, because she has not read the Little House books. (She did read the My First Little House series years ago, when she was a preschooler and kindergartner – but it had been a minute.)

Eventually, we reached a trail junction. Our research had indicated that we could take either the North or the South trail and end up at the petrified wood, but the South was a bit faster – so we went that way.

Just as Steve was starting to wonder out loud when we’d be seeing the petrified wood, I spotted some unusually shaped boulders immediately ahead of us. “I’m pretty sure… now,” I replied.

We walked over a little lip in the trail and then started to scuttle down the bare rock face into a valley that was dotted, unmistakably, with petrified tree stumps. It does not get cooler.

We wandered around the petrified forest for almost an hour, taking our time poking into every nook and cranny, examining every piece of petrified wood, and calling each other over to share in all the cool finds.

What a cool hike this was! I’ve found that when hiking with anklebiters, it does help to have a goal. The goal doesn’t need to be a petrified forest – it can be something as simple as a snack picnic at a good turnaround point. But it’s nice to occasionally be able to deliver something with real WOW factor, and the Petrified Forest Loop certainly had that. The kids were suitably impressed. And as we hiked back to the car (scanning for wild horses – saw some – and bison – another strikeout) I started mulling over a trip to Petrified Forest National Park, which I imagine is… like this, but on a grander scale. I can’t say that was high on my list of national parks to visit before, but after this hike it certainly moved up the ladder a few spots.

Have you ever found petrified wood on a hike?

Next week, we check out another one of TR’s Dakota residences. This one has walls!