Vantage, WA
We chose to stay at Vantage Washington for three days as we traveled west toward the Pacific coast mostly because it was in a convenient place to stop after Couer d’Alene, our previous stop. We were aware of Wanapum Lake and the petrified forest and hoped they would provide some interesting things to see while in the area.
Ginkgo Petrified Forest State Park is one of the most significant petrified wood sites in the world. The park was established in 1935 and is named after the ginkgo tree, a rare species found among the petrified specimens in the area. It covers about 7,470 acres and is one of the most unusual and significant fossil forests in the world. It features a large collection of petrified logs and stumps that were formed millions of years ago during the Miocene epoch, around 15 to 20 million years ago, when the region was covered in a subtropical forest.
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