The Painted Hills can be magical. Geological stratigraphy on display. Reds, tans, blacks, browns all laid out in layers slightly tilted. Of the three units of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, this one attracts the most visitors. The Hills are closest in distance to large cities of any size – one and half to two hours from Bend (90 miles) and four to five from Portland (a little over 200 miles depending upon your route) – while the other units are another hour further on.

GENERALITIES

Day visitors usually miss the best time to visit the Hills, however, which is sunset. After rains are good and May features wildflowers in bloom. Not that much rain ever falls here nor would the area ever been misconstrued as a floral paradise.

Most tourists end up here around midday or early afternoon. It does not take too many tourists to make the fairly small region feel crowded. The roads within the unit are gravel – dusty gravel. You can usually spot the cars in the nearby town of Mitchell that have been to the Painted Hills recently by the fine coating of red dust on the car and its windows.

The gravel roads are easy to travel, just go slow so not to kick up too much dust for others. It is about a mile in to the Painted Hills Overlook. Other trails are located further on, but the Park Service recommends RVs and other large vehicles to stop here. That did not deter a family pulling a monster-sized trailer from venturing further to the other stops much to the discomfort of cars having to travel behind, especially when they had to turn around in car parks not meant for gargantuan RVs.

NAME IT AND THEY WILL COME

Oregon’s travel board, TravelOregon, has included the Painted Hills in a list of their making called the “Seven Wonders of Oregon“. Of course, a visit to the Seven Wonders takes you on a tour of much of the State since the wonders strategically spread out. That said, the Painted Hills – like the other “Wonders” – are well worth a visit. Just remember that tactical is not the same as strategical and plan accordingly.

Interestingly, numbers of visitors to the Painted Hills doubled after the travel board included the Hills as one of the “Seven Wonders” –  from 45,849 people to 74,873 in 2015.

GEOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION

Geology is important if you want to know how the Hills were created. The layers created are all part of the geological stratigraphy or the study of rock layering. Essentially, the bands were created by volcanic ash eruptions during the formation of the Cascade Mountain range some 32 to 35 million years ago – Oligocene epoch. The ash was blown eastward and deposited in lowland areas of the John Day basin. Colored bands represent climate changes occurring when the ash was laid down. Reds and yellows are laterites, soils rich in iron and aluminum created in tropical climates. The reds from a warmer and the yellows from a cooler and drier era. Black streaks are the work of plants fixing minerals or salts concentrating when mineral-rich waters dried – manganese nodules.

THE “TRAILS”

“Trails” in parenthesis because only one of the trails can be considered any more than a stroll. There are five trails within the unit. Only the Carroll Rim Trail is over a mile in total – 1.6 miles round trip and 400 vertical foot gain. One does not go to the Painted Hills unit to do any serious hiking. Limited, too, in trying to take the “perfect” picture. Due to the nature of the ground, you need to stay on the trail. All that is needed to render the Painted Hills into a mush is a bunch of people wandering at will over the hills. If you are a deer, well, you have right of way.

TRAIL ONE – the Overlook trail

The first and probably foremost “trail” to take is the Painted Hills Overlook trail. From the large car park, read about the nature of the ground in the covered exhibit area and then proceed out along the ridge for good views of the main Painted Hills spine. The views change as you walk the quarter mile out. Afternoon and morning is fine, but sunset is taking it to another level. The Painted Hills get a fair amount of publicity. People come thinking a wide range when in reality the “hills” are do not cover that much ground.

TRAIL TWO – the Painted Cove

For the second trail, drive past the Overlook Parking – if you have a huge RV, try hitchiking! – for a half mile down to a road going off to the right. Another half mile brings you to the parking lot for the Painted Cove trail. This trail is only a quarter mile. The first half is on an elevated boardwalk – elevated to protect the little dune you walk around. Red is the color. Here, different times of day give you different looks. Sunset is not necessarily the best time. Maybe early morning is better here.

In May, you can catch some of the wildflowers, including the Chaenactis douglasii, Douglas’ dustymaiden that can be seen crowing in the crevasses of the red dunes where water congregate – that is when some of the nine inches a year are present.

As you walk the boardwalk, pay attention to the colors. Remember the climatic influences.

This is the second-most popular trail in the unit. Solitude is not anywhere in its name.

TRAIL THREE – the Red Hill

Down the Burnt Creek Road, stay straight past the road going to the Painted Cove, just before you leave the Monument is another car park for the quarter mile trail taking you around the Red Hill. The Red Hill is red until it is not. Walk around to the backside and yellows predominate. Again, color determined by climate.

Animal tracks give you an indication of why humans should stay on the paths.

THE PATHS NOT TAKEN – Leaf trail and Carroll Ridge

Carroll Ridge gains 400 feet in about 0.75 miles, certainly not difficult, but in the hot afternoon when we were first here, no. You get a nice view of the whole area, but the area of the Painted Hills is, once more, not that large. The best views of the Hills themselves are from the Overlook trail. This is one time when a close-up view is better than an overview. Best views from this trail would still be around sunset.

The Leaf trail is another quarter mile trail found along Burnt Creek Road not far from the Red Hill. This path shows an area where geologists have discovered many botanical fossils from among the rocks. We had just spent time digging for fern and leaf fossils behind the football field at Fossil High School, so we decided to give the little trail a pass.

SURROUNDINGS

There are very little in the way of facilities for visitors in the Painted Hills unit. A small picnic area with pit toilets exists not far from where you come in on the gravel road into the unit. The nearest camping, lodging and food possibilities are in Mitchell, six miles away. Otherwise, some people use the Ochoco Divide campground off US Highway 26 twenty-five miles to the west. Spray, Fossil, Dayville, John Day and Prineville are further yet afield. As are the other two units of the National Monument.

If you are coming from Fossil, Service Creek or Spray to the north, the normal route is Oregon Highway 207 south to US 26 next to Mitchell. Another outstanding option is the Girds Creek-Rowe Creek Road coming off Oregon 207 five-six miles north of US 26 or about seven miles south of Fossil on Oregon 19. The road crosses the John Day in the area known as Twickenham, a congregation of ranches along the river with a schoolhouse dating to the late 19th century.

Twickenham was originally named “Contention” because of a simmering dispute between local ranchers. The name of the London suburb given later to give a better conotation. Both Girds Creek canyon and Twickenham are spectacular. The road is a bicycle option, part of the Oregon Scenic Bikeway routes. I like the south to north scenery on this road. Not to say the scenery along Oregon 207 is bad either.