Jaramillo Petrified Forest

The Bosques Petrificados de Jaramillo protect a landscape from before the Andes existed. Around 150 million years ago this was a forest of giant araucaria; volcanic eruptions buried it in ash, silica replaced the wood, and the mountains rose to the west afterwards, drying the region into the steppe visible today. Erosion has since uncovered the trunks, some over thirty metres long and more than three metres thick, lying scattered across pale ground with cones and fragments around them. A short interpretive trail runs from the ranger station through the main concentration. It became a national park in 2012, and the isolation is total: bare rock, wind, guanacos and the fossil trees.

What you actually see

• The giant trunks - petrified araucaria logs of extraordinary size.
• The fossil cones - preserved cones and fragments across the ground.
• The interpretive trail - the marked walk from the ranger station.
• The empty steppe - wind-scoured plain with guanacos and no settlement.

When to go

October to April for reasonable temperatures and road conditions; the site is exposed and bitterly cold and windy in winter. Early or late light shows the trunks best. Rain can make the gravel access difficult.

Honest expectations

The access road is fifty kilometres of gravel with no services, fuel or water, and the nearest facilities are far away on the RN3. The trail is short and the site is a single kind of thing seen repeatedly. Removing fossil material is prohibited and enforced.

Nearby

Jaramillo and Fitz Roy villages sit on the RN3; Puerto Deseado lies southeast on the coast.