Open year around, the park offers a wide variety of recreational activities including sightseeing, picnicking, hiking, fishing, boating, waterskiing, swimming and camping. A wide variety of wildlife exists in the park. Deer, elk, and coyote are some of the more common mammals found here. From spring to fall many types of reptiles can be seen. During the cooler hours of the day, lizards and snakes, like the side blotched lizard, the gopher snake and of course, the poisonous Northern Pacific rattlesnake, are found foraging through the sagebrush.
Birds also live here, like the finch, the raven, the hawk and the great bald eagle.
The Ginkgo Petrified Forest Interpretive Center is located at the Heritage Area. The initial building was completed in 1936. Since then the southern part of the building has been added. In the Center over 50 varieties of cut and polished sections of petrified wood are on display. The Interpretive Center is open daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. May 16 through September 15.