I took a brief trip out to the Gingko Petrified Forest in mid-November of 2004. The first stop was the interpretive trails which I found to be rather disappointing. This group of small braided trails features petrified wood specimens from various trees including some rarer ones not common to Central Washington such as Gingko and Redwood. However the featured petrified wood was in little trailside wells with grates over them to protect them from thieves. Of course, this made it hard to get good looks at them let alone photograph them without intervening bars. But the trails and desert terrain was nice enough. I then hit the museum which was closed for the season. However there were many nice chunks of petrified wood out for display outside here giving a much better sense of the appearance of these transformed trees. Additionally there were some old petroglyphs which had been moved to the museum to be semi-preserved. Finally, the scene was also capped off with some nice views of this stretch of the Columbia including the bluffs on the East side of river and the Vantage bridge as well as the rolling terrain heading off to the North. The photos: