Petrified Tree (Yellowstone National Park, WY)

We drove the short road out to see the Petrified Tree. One can see it from the parking lot. If one wants a closer look at it, one can walk up an uphill trail to get a close up view. It doe not take much time to see it. This now solid rock was once a giant redwood tree surrounded by a forest of trees just like it. During violent volcanic eruptions millions of years ago, mudflows and volcanic deposits rapidly filled the open pores of the tree , solidifying it into the rocky trunk that you see today. Where there was once two there is now only one petrified tree left standing. In the earlier days of the park, visitors and explorers took pieces of the second tree until there was nothing left to take. A fence surrounds the remaining tree so that it will be left alone and still standing for generations to come.