There's (Petrified) Wood in Them-Thar Hills!

There has always been a special place in my heart for soft wood that has been transformed into hard rock. As a child I loved dinosaur bones, but even those huge hunks of monstrous marrow couldn't compete with my attraction for petrified wood. I have perpetually been drawn to the detail, the color, the texture, and the many varieties of fossilized wood.

In 2009, on a family trip to my boyhood home of Santa Cruz, California, I dragged my wife and kids to the outskirts of Woodruff, Arizona in my quest to acquire chucks of petrified wood (I have included directions to this collecting site at the end of this article). An impending rainstorm cut that expedition to just under a half-hour of hunting, but I still drove away with several nice specimens. For six years I had been yearning for another chance to scan the soil for my favorite fossils.

The August 8th wedding of my nephew in Colorado Springs provided the prime opportunity to slake my rockhound's thirst. We traveled to Colorado a week before the marriage nuptials to allow time for some visits with friends, sight-seeing, and (of course) rockhounding. As the sun rose upon the cloud-crowned mountains surrounding the tourist-haven of Winter Park, Colorado on the morning of August 4th, 2015, my faithful sidekick, Chase, and I headed west by northwest along Highway 40 to Kremmling.

It was a cool 51 degrees in Winter Park as we departed at 7:00am, but the thermometer had plummeted to an unseasonable 35 degrees by the time we reached Fraser, Colorado (known as "The Icebox of the Nation"). We grabbed a couple of sodas and snacks and then continued several more miles west to Kremmling.

We stopped in town to purchase supplies for the trip, including a collecting bucket, small shovel, a pair of garden trowels, hammer, chisel, and bug spray.

The petrified wood collecting site is located a few miles east of Kremmling, about 3.6 miles north along County Road 2 off of Highway 40. The low hills adorning the area has been aptly nicknamed the Badlands of Colorado, Thousands of years of erosion has transformed the multicolored sandstone into a fitting geologic twin of that famous region of South Dakota.

The area to the east of County Road 2 is federal land, under the supervision and care of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Once you turn north onto County Road 2, drive approximately 3.6 miles (this is a very well-maintained and level gravel road) and then park on the right shoulder of the road.

Small pieces of petrified wood can be found in the sandy, chalky soil just to the right (east) of the road among the hills and ravines. Our best specimens were found at least three hundred yards to the east, far from the road. The closer we were to County Road 2, the fewer fossils we would find.

There is a tremendous amount of smaller fossilized chips of wood, but in about 2.5 hours of hunting, we landed a couple dozen larger pieces (up to 5 inches long). I have seen reports of larger pieces (up to 10 inches) but we were not fortunate enough to discover any on that scale.

We just used our eyes and small hand-trowels. Obviously, areas of recent erosion and areas of densely packed rocks were prime candidates for searching.

 Oftentimes if we found a larger piece, then there would be smaller chips nearby. The detail and the color of the petrified wood from this hotspot is gorgeous. The only downside on this trip to Kremmling was that I was so absorbed in my hunt that I forgot to apply sunscreen.

The deep, bright reds in the petrified wood was more than matched by the crimson dome of my nearly-bald head.

Here is a direct link to a Google Maps locator for this collecting site:
LINK TO THE COLLECTING SITE

The view looking west towards Kremmling

For those interested in collecting near Woodruff, Arizona, here are some directions I found years ago:

Take Arizona 77 south from Holbrook to the Woodruff turnoff.
Go east to the town of Woodruff. You will pass a large church, and the road will end at a "T".
Turn right (south). You will go over a single-lane bridge.
Continue until the road branches in a "Y".
Take the left-hand branch.
At mile post #2(three miles from the bridge), you will see a windmill and a dirt road on your left. Turn left at this road.
Drive approximately 1.3 miles. You will pass some "farm" buildings on your left.
A short distance further you will come to a "Y" in the road. Turn right and stop.
You can collect petrified wood on the hill immediately to your left or drive about 1/4 mile further and collect on the hill to the right of the road.

MAP OF ARIZONA COLLECTING SITE:

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