Blue Mesa

Part of the Painted Desert

Morenci Mine

I was completely floored by the utter devastation that is strip mining. This was an unexpected stop on our road trip, at the end of the Coronado Trail.

Seems like a week ago

But here we are leaving for Lyman Lake yeaterday.

Morenci Mine

The scale of this place could only be captured by air. You drive through this amazing dense forest and lush mountains standing almost 10,000 feet tall and promptly descend into a wasteland. The tops of all the mountains around you have simply disappeared, disintegrated into scalloped shelves of discarded rubble. Looking at it, standing in the middle of it, you feel an undeniable sense of responsibility as a human.

Petrified what?

The best part of the park were the incredible fossils. I learned that before the continents broke apart, the Petrified Forest (now a seemingly barren wasteland) was a rainforest located around modern-day Panama.

Petrified Forest

This stuff was pretty amazing, but it wasn't the best part of the park.