Enjoy the view—visual resources inventory report: Petrified Forest National Park
Meyer ME, Parker W, Peters MV, Felten R. 2019. Enjoy the view—visual resources inventory report: Petrified Forest National Park. Natural Resource Report. NPS/PEFO/NRR—2019/1980. National Park Service. Fort Collins, Colorado
Each unit at the national park system has special visual characteristics that are often a central component of the unit’s management and visitor experience. Petrified Forest National Park offers spectacularly colored badlands and large petrified log fossils, in a unique desert environment. The existing scenery at Petrified Forest is an important way to experience the park as the setting for the extraordinary petrified wood fossils. As part of the National Park Service’s Call to Action #38, Enjoy the View, Petrified Forest National Park initiated a visual resource inventory that focused on identifying key facts about the scenic views for a portion of the Park. The inventory was completed according to the methodology developed by the National Park Service (NPS) for assessing and protecting visual resources. The inventory system consists of both fieldwork associated with view description and scenic quality ratings, and an office-based process for assigning importance values to the views. Petrified Forest National Park selected 20 views for the initial visual resource inventory to inform future park management objectives and collaboration efforts to conserve scenic views. The results of the inventory identified that majority of the views have very high or high scenic inventory value while one view fell into moderate category.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Meyer, Mark; Parker, William; Peters, Melanie; Felten, Ryan
- Date of Issue
- 2019-08
- Publisher
- National Park Service
- Units
- NRSS , PEFO