Blue Mesa
Some of the park's most beautiful badlands, the Blue Mesa area is accessible via a 3.5-mile loop road off the main park highway.
Guide Sections
Use Blue Mesa's guide sections to understand how this stop fits into the larger park plan.
Blue Mesa Details
Difficulty
Low
Distance
N/A
Estimated time
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Region
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Some of the park's most beautiful badlands, the Blue Mesa area is accessible via a 3.5-mile loop road off the main park highway, as well as a worthwhile one-mile loop hiking trail into the area. Here, blue, gray, white, lavender and green striated mounds, cones, buttes and fins rise dramatically above an otherwise flat landscape. The Blue Mesa Member is part of the Chinle Formation, which is the geological basis for the Painted Desert. These thick deposits of grey, blue, purple, and green stripes are the combined result of mineral presence and water levels at the time of sedimentary deposition. The area is also littered with the park's namesake petrified wood.