Last Thurs. and Fri. (May 19 & 20) I backpacked into the Petrified Forest National Park near Holbrook, AZ. My pack weighed in at a hefty 54 lbs, I had 2 gallons of water in my pack, and carried 3 qts. in my hand. I knew about an old truck, 1920's style, all the way up Chinde Wash, near Chinde Mesa, so I made that my objective. There were also supposed to be petroglyphs and ruins along the way, but, I never did find them. The first night I camped inside a big bend in Chinde Wash. The next morning I left my pack and took some water and a camera to continue up Chinde Wash to the truck. I tried following what looked to be the main wash, but soon discovered I had followed the wrong one. I backtracked about a half mile and took another wash that had to be Chinde. About a halfmile later I came upon the truck. From the truck I retraced my route to where the ruins and petroglyphs were supposed to be. Back at camp, I got my pack and headed back down Chinde Wash til I was west of the Black Forest. Once again, I left my pack behind a large petrified log and hiked cross country in search of Onyx Bridge, a petrified log lying across a wash. I later found out that the bridge had broken some time ago, and I had found Onyx Bridge, I just didn't know it. Back to my pack, it was about noon and getting a lot hotter than the previous day. I had about a gallon of water left, not enough to continue exploring in this heat. I decided the prudent course of action at this point was to do what the desert critters were doing for the afternoon, sit in the shade. I found a Tamarisk tree in Chinde Wash and sat there for about 3 hrs. I had lunch, I had brought along "Desert Notes", by Barry Lopez, I read that. I sipped some water about each hour, watched the clouds roll by. Finally I decided to move down the wash, I could see an 8 ft. cut bank forming a shadow, about a 1/4 mile away. I spent another 3 hrs in the shadow of that cutbank, til it was almost 7:00pm. I set up camp across the wash. Next morning I had less than a quart of water left, and about 4 miles and a steep mesa to hike. I drank the rest of the water and headed out early. Thankfully, my pack weighed about 33 lbs. at this point, and it was a very pleasant morning walk back to my truck and some ice cold water. Critters seen on this trip were- a coyote that I scared out of his shady resting spot the first afternoon. At the top of Chinde Wash I came around a blind cutbank corner and saw 3 deer on the hill in front of me. They immediately saw me also, I moved my hand towards my camera, and they all took off. The only other animals were two jackrabbits.