Escalante Petrified Forest State Park

Fun hike, great place to camp. This is a fun day trip or a great area to camp for a few days. The hike is a fun loop with some amazing petrified wood along the way.

This was a pleasant surprise for us while visiting the town of Escalante, UT. You pay $10 to enter the state park and park in the parking lot adjacent to the entry point. You have two options two hike and see the petrified trees. One hike is 1 mile the other one with the most amount of petrified trees adds another 3/4 of a mile to the original loop but well worth it. This place is a hidden gem and unforgettable. A very nice place to bring the family and your doggos on a leash.

A nice hike! Quite a bit uphill so can be challenging especially on a hot summer day. Nice views and colorful stones made it worth it. Only complaint was that reported “swimmers rash” kept us from swimming in the lake. $10 entry fee per car.

Beautiful little site. The lake and day use area's were great for pulling out the camp stove and making a coffee. I hiked up into the forest and saw some amazing views.

A very nice campground with an excellent view of the lake. They have clean restroom and fairly clean showers with plenty of hot water, but you do have to pay to stay there and the cost can vary base on power and water needs.

Nice (new) campground on Wide Hollow Reservoir with full hookups. There are various trails to take from easy to somewhat strenuous. Be sure to see some petrified logs which are beautiful.

We recently stayed at Escalante Petrified Forest State Park for several days. We were in our 29-foot travel trailer. This was a great campground to stay at. The bathrooms were clean, and the showers were wonderful. We hiked the trail and looked out at the lake, which was beautiful, and my husband had great luck fishing in the morning and evening, though he didn't keep anything. We were in spot 21 right by the visitor's center and boat dock. That site had both water and electricity. The spot itself is not a pull through or a back-in site. You need to be able to fit your trailer on the side of the campground road so other people can get by. That was the only part we were surprised by. If you have a smaller rig, this will be fine, but I can imagine someone with a big rig situation may not fit. This was a great campground. We selected the spot we did because from photos, it looked to be shaded, which it is, but not fully. If we stayed here again, we would choose a spot in the newer section, which doesn't have much shade because that area was much quieter. Spot 21 is pretty noisy because it is right across from the boat dock, and all the families play there:) There is a $15 dump fee at this campground on top of your camp fee. The staff were all wonderful! I highly recommend this campground and hope we get to return one day.

Very nice small campground with great clean amenities. We enjoyed our stay and also especially the hike here. There is so much petrified wood to see, splendid colours and beautiful scenery.

We went here to take a look at the petrified wood. I believe it was$10/vehicle for entry. They had a small but nice visitor center with flushing toilet restrooms. There is a short hike uphill to the petrified wood with views overlooking the reservoir. Bring water and walk at your own pace. We saw a few other groups on the hike but most of the time we had the place to ourselves.

I've heard of petrified forests but have never been to one. While driving what seemed like forever on gorgeous mountain highway, we came across a sign for Escalante Petrified Forest State Park. We decided to make the stop. After paying the $10 entrance fee, we were allowed to hit the head and then the trailhead. Additionally, this park is known for its lake which you can wade in. We did not do that but the lake is definitely pretty to look at. The staff advised that the 1.2 mile hiking Petrified Forest loop was of moderate difficulty and I'd agree. Lots of steep switchbacks to start and some rock steps. If you're not in a good walking shape, this will be more difficult and you should take more breaks. There's hardly any shade, and you should bring sun gear clothing and water. We wore our hiking boots but I saw others with sneakers which I don't recommend. There was a lot of sand on the trail. We had a paper which described the 14 points of interest along the way. And like the state park's name, you'll see petrified wood. It is not the most exciting thing to do but the experience with family was great. It also appears that you can camp here for a fee and we saw a lot of RVs. The bathroom house has showers on one side marked for campers only. Overall, superb views and a nice couple of hours with family.

Great stop between Capitol Reef and Bryce! Excellent facilities and staff. Hiked the full loop and enjoyed viewing the plentiful amount of petrified wood, along with great views. Highly recommend this place if you have the time as we did.

Not recommended. Way over priced. You pay to get in the park for the entire day (no matter how long you're there). It is $20 an hour to rent a sit on top kayak (very cheap material and seats are broken). We didn't catch anything and our avid fisherman. The front desk was not very welcoming or helpful. This time of year (August) the reservoir is very low and there was a lot of algae. no one could tell us how deep it was. You can catch trout, bluegill and pass, but we didn't even see a thing! Campsites are small but have a nice views. It's very small and needs some major updating and landscaping. Video taken prior to scouting around the reservoir and the area.

Beautiful state park and hike up through the rocks and over the lake to see the petrified forest. Lots.of unique plants and formations and the brochure from the visitor center gives you tons of information with markers along the trail as you go. Was a good educational experience for the kids. They have the junior ranger program as well. Great for kids and families, just have water and hats/sunscreen as there's no shade. Bathrooms are clean and parking is good. Places for picnics and camping as well. Worth the stop!

Again I found myself in unfamiliar territory, with dark coming, and no place to spend the night. And again, this big beautiful Utah and the kindness of its people really came through. I pulled in while the sun was still just above the horizon of Wide Hollow Reservoir and did a quick cruise around the campground and found it to be full, but the kind host came out and offered an overflow spot, which wasn't much more than a strip of gravel between the road and the water, but it did come with a table and fire pit. Could I have found better and more cushy accommodations elsewhere? Yup. Could I have found free accommodations on the surrounding BLM land? Also, yes. But I was coming out of days of sleeping on the trail, and this was the perfect halfway house. Not quite luxury (running water and toilets are pretty nice, though) and not quite wilderness, it eased me back into the real world. The campground is pretty compact, on the shore of the reservoir. It reaches uphill a little towards the hike among petrified wood, and holds a handful of sites, a more expensive group site, and does have showers. Now, this park is pretty small overall and the reservoir, while it did provide the occasional entertaining lipsmack of a rising fish, isn't the most scenic. But this is the desert, so any water is a gift. The main attraction is the petrified wood, best seen from the mile (or so) trail on the upper reaches of the hill. It's interesting stuff. I think the best way to experience the park is maybe as a "Hey I was in the neighborhood and I thought I'd stop by" kind of mentality. If you're coming across Highway 12 and you're going to be around Escalante, and you have the time, why not check it out? If you need to spend the night and you're not keen on getting cushier (read: more expensive, indoor) accommodations, this will do the trick. I've paid more for the opportunity to take a shower, and there wasn't any petrified forest to boot. Honestly, it's really just about the adventure and experience. I went to town, bought firewood, and watched the sun set over the water. It's the kind of place you have a funny, fond memory of after the fact.

Small state park with some really great petrified wood exhibits, and a moderately difficult trail up a mountain to see even more. I did not complete the hike - although dogs are allowed on leash, the trail is steep and narrow, and has many straight dropoffs that unnerved our recently adopted doggo, so we turned around and came back down. The park itself is small, but the petrified wood is really neat, and there is a nice covered picnic area with a pretty view of the small canyon if you want to cool off or eat lunch.

The petrified forest state park is an easy stop along highway 12. It is $4 per car to see a small area with a big petrified wood tree and logs. It takes about 5 minutes to walk thru everything. There is also a hike you can do up to the top but it was more money. We were kind of in a hurry so we did not do the hike. There are bathrooms available, too!

Cool little state park with a hike to see some petrified wood. Hike is nice with a loop trail to see the wood. Good place to hike and grab a bite to eat. Lots of petrified wood on the backside of the loop. It is a little of a climb to get to the top of the Mesa but well worth it!

We booked our camp site months in advance. I booked site 109, which was the last one available for July 19-22. My sister arrived before me. The camp host, Kendall was rude from the start. As he was checking her in, he rudely asked "did you see the sign?". My sister replied "what sign"? He then pointed to a piece of paper that said no campfires allowed. He said "right there", condescendingly. He then asked her what she had to cook with. She said, "we have stoves, I think." He said, "if you don't, you better get your food in town. There's no fires." (Didn't realize we needed a lecture, right off the bat.) Later, I was checked in, by a nice lady. She made no mention of the fire sign but I saw it. She took my name and gave me a map and brochure. No rudeness at all from her. All was fine after, until a fellow camper came over to our camp site to berate three of us for being loud after 10pm. He was extremely hostile, even though we apologized profusely. We didn't clean up that night, because didn't want to upset the other camper further that evening and went to bed. The next morning the other camper left for the day and must have complained about us to one of the other employees. That employee then drove over on his golf cart, looked at us and drove back to the office. He didn't say anything to us. (Meanwhile, I cleaned up the beer leftovers, that we hadn't thrown away the night before.) Then Kendall drove up but passed our group to single out my sister to discuss the other campers complaint. He said he'd remembered her from the day before. He said the other camper told him we were confrontational when he said something to us he night before. That camper flat out lied. All we we're doing was talking. No music, no other noise. We didn't realize the wall of our site, ricocheted our voices. We were and are respectful! If someone points out we're too loud, we listen! We camp all the time. This was my third time camping this summer. My sister tried to explain our side but Kendall refused to listen. He said she had to pay $50 within the hour or he was calling the sheriff. Really? Why? The rules state a cleaning deposit for 12 or more people. We did not have 12 people. He said we might get it back when we leave but if he heard so much as a pin drop after ten, he'd call the sheriff to kick us out. What a terrible way to treat your customers, Kendall! We left because we were wrongly accused, harassed and threatened. He never listened to anything we said. So he refunded our four campsites minus the reservation fee, which is stealing in my opinion. This host ruined my entire weekend. Had to spend $170 in town for a dumpy motel. I will never stay at this park. We know many people in town, and we'll be recommending them to not go here either.

This is a great little park with an amazing (in both quality and quantity) display of petrified wood. Hundreds of millions of years ago this area had a big river flowing through it....a river which periodically flooded. One of those floods must have been really violent because it ripped up trees from a nearby forest, washed them downstream, and piled them here in a sort of prehistoric logjam! Now you can hike through the area and see hundreds of chunks of petrified wood lying around and many, many petrified tree trunks poking out of the ground, along with lots of great scenery in general. Be sure to take the Trail of Sleeping Rainbows loop off of the main trail, which adds about 3/4 of a mile to the hike (and can be a bit strenuous in parts), to see the most fossilized wood. Oh, and heads up: the petrified wood is supposedly haunted and stealing pieces of it are said to bring a person extremely bad luck. By "bad luck" I'm assuming they mean "fines and/or jail time". Haha! So, yeah, don't be a jerk by stealing the petrified wood. We didn't camp here but, from what we saw, the campground looked pretty nice and was right next to the reservoir. There is also a REALLY small (but nice) visitor center/museum.

Loved this campground. It's a very peaceful setting. Very well maintained, clean and quiet. We camped here at the end of March 2016, with a tent at campsite 4 (across the road from the restroom and showers). It was still very cold, 20 degrees in the morning. Beautiful view of the reservoir when you wake up in the morning. Great hiking trail, gorgeous views. The only con I can say about this place is that it's a bit out of the way, an hour drive from Bryce Canyon, you will not even see the lake as you are driving in. But over all if you're looking to get away from it all, this place is perfect.

Lovely little state park that has amazing pieces of petrified wood all over the place. We hiked both the Petrified Forest trail and the Trail of Sleeping Rainbows. The latter has more petrified wood but is also more strenuous (not terrible but quite steep). The two trails combined took us about 1.5 hours, frequent photo stops included :)

Turn off from Route 12 onto a dirt road to reach this park. It has a great view of a lake and the surrounding mountains. Seems like a popular place to camp, as there were many campers there when we arrived. We hiked the petrified wood trail. A moderate 1 mile hike, round-trip to see slabs of petrified wood. It was kind of neat seeing these beautiful rocks (yes, they're rocks, not really wood), but I'm not sure it was worth the effort to see as few of them as we saw.

Beautiful place... 1/2/18 We were the only campers there aside from the camp host. Too bad that slackass host had all the bathrooms locked, prob so they didn't have to clean them! While they sat in their RV with a giant flatscreen tV on the wall... So check to see if the facilities are locked before you pay the iron ranger! I would of stayed and not paid if I had only checked the bathrooms locks first!

This was a great little hike with the kids. Fairly easy hike. Do the extra loop so you can really see the petrified logs. Kids loved it and there is a lake there if you need a dip after the hike.

I exited scenic byway 12 to check this place out. I didn't have the time to actually hike up to the forest, but since I was all the way there, I decided to at least check out the petrified wood exhibit. I'd never seen petrified wood before so that was kinda cool.

This great state park has a wonderful camp ground. It is a great staging point for many beautiful hikes. Check out the slot canyons down hole in the rock road. Also lower calf creek falls.