While the Blue Forest was included in the National Monument originally
it is now several miles outside the present boundary. It is from this
section that much of the wood used commercially is obtained. Many find
this weird formation the most interesting spot in the entire country.
Miles and more miles of blue-gray mounds, varying in size, formed of the
crumbling marl have been beaten and blown into a semblance of numberless
haystacks. It is arduous climbing to reach the top of this Blue Forest,
but the view obtained is well worth the skinned knees and twisted ankles
produced by rolling shale. From the highest elevation there is a view
that beggars description. One cannot put into words his feeling of
desolation, of helplessness, that comes in looking over the formation.
Vanishing in the distance the mounds lie in rows that grow gradually
smaller and smaller until they melt into the level landscape below. On
the tops of these cold, blue mounds great trees lie prone, many of them
shattered and cascading their jeweled hearts down the slope....
Here great piles of splintered, colorless wood are found, looking as if
the chopper had just left the scene of his labors, the chips of his
day’s work lying scattered about. Again, a big tree broken open by the
frost, or other agencies, discloses a lining of gleaming crystals,
glittering and sparkling in the Arizona sun. Here the great dinosaur
lived and died, and from his tomb fossil bones have been carried to
universities far and wide. Here the phytosaurus and the stegosaurus
breathed their last, and from here was taken the wicked looking upper
jaw of a phytosaurus which had weathered the ravages of time and
elements. This lies in a glass case in the store at Headquarters, where
all may see it and be thankful such creatures roam this region no
longer.
Here, the rattlesnake lies coiled in the shade of the sombre hued cones,
and scarcely troubles to sound his warning when visitors intrude.
Overhead a tireless buzzard hangs suspended. No other signs of life are
seen in this dead gray waste, the burial plot of the Dark Ages.