In the north central part of Oregon sits the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. Home to the surreal geological oddity known as The Painted Hills, of fossil beds that shimmer green and blue under cloudless skies, of jumbled collections of fossils from ancient forests that speak of a time when this was a tropical jungle haunted by saber-tooth cats and prototypic horses.
One of the givens of the Pacific Northwest is that it rains. A lot. From the java-jazzed hustle of Seattle to the quiet coastal towns of Oregon, locals spend their days under grey clouds and constant showers for nearly nine months of the year. The image most people have of Oregon is lush, abundant greens, towering Douglas firs in seaside fog, salmon and bears.
First appearances, though, can be deceiving. Over the fractured mountains of the Coast Range and the Cascades, with their iconic volcanic peaks and dense, resinous forests, the majority of Oregon is actually a broad expanse of high, cold desert. Tumble weeds actually tumble through the shells of old gold-rush ghost towns, cowboys herd cattle and sheep through dry gullies, and the land is blue green with sagebrush.
In the north central part of Oregon sits the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. Home to the surreal geological oddity known as The Painted Hills, of fossil beds that shimmer green and blue under cloudless skies, of jumbled collections of fossils from ancient forests that speak of a time when this was a tropical jungle haunted by saber-tooth cats and prototypic horses.
Like most visitors, we came to the area by car. Public transport is at best sparse, more realistically non-existent, throughout this highly isolated area. The John Day National Monument’s three subunits, Painted Hills, Sheep Rock and the Clarno Unit, sit widely separated, each almost 100 km from the next in a great flattened triangle. From the sun-worshipping retirement towns of Bend and Sisters we threaded north along slender highways, hugging the sides of mountain ranges as we climbed into white pine and juniper forests. Feeling a need for sustenance, we stopped at a mom-and-pop diner in the tiny town of Mitchell (population about 150, not counting the dogs) for cheeseburgers and strong, rich coffee served in chipped ceramic mugs.
Arriving at the Painted Hills, I felt that I had finally made it to Mars. Not the dry, harsh stony plains of the Mars Explorer rovers and modern science, but the lurid Mars of pulp science fiction. A land where greens, reds and yellows in the land clash and contrast, where surely a bubble-domed city of flying cars and green-skinned sirens with bee-hive hairdos waits just over the next ridge to seduce a weary traveler. Formed by millions of years of slow erosion, the Painted Hills reveal bentonite clays and lakebed sediments laid down by ancient volcanoes. Coloured by aluminium, iron, magnesium, titanium and other minerals in the erupted ashes, the clay has worn away into fantastic, almost organic shapes whose colour and texture vary with the time of the day, season and rainfall. Tall, fragile, and forbidding, the main hills are fenced off to prevent visitors from tramping across their faces and leaving footprint trails that will take years to fade. Unperturbed, mule deer and antelope wander the reserve, leaving sharp imprints on the sides of the hills as they search for scrubby forage. Walking trails thread their way through the hills and up a nearby ridge, a much harder granite slab that rears above the hills like the bow of a sinking ship giving spectacular views of the dreamlike scene below.
As isolated and sparsely populated as this region is, the choices for accommodation are limited. We camped for several nights in camp grounds run by the state of Oregon, tent sites and boat ramps strung along a picturesque stretch of the John Day River, swollen with snow melt in the early spring. We slept lightly to the sound of rushing water and deep, resonant thumping of boulders moving in the river, waking to the eerie screech of buzzards and the clattering flutter of migrating ducks.
From the Painted Hills we head to Sheep Rock, a rich fossil bed eroding into a blazing white clay amphitheatre. Here bright green clay contains the skeletons of early horses, small hippo-like herbivores and their arch nemesis, the saber-tooth cat. Visitor access is restricted to carefully laid paths and walkways while trailside displays showcase replicas of fossils dug from the cliff face by paleontologists. Harsh and forbidding, the fossil bearing clay is bright green and blue, capped by white deposits, the whole structure eroded into fantastic spires, grottoes and fingers by the occasional fury of desert thunderstorms. As the clay washes away, ancient bones are exposed, stained dark brown by unimaginable periods of geological time. Baked in summer desert heat then cracked by the grip of harsh winters, the blue and green cliffs surround an emerald coloured stream bed flanked by blue-grey sage bush and the gentle yellows of dry grasses, a study in subtle pastels.
In the small town of Fossil, appropriately enough, we stop to dig for fossils at the local high school. Behind the school’s playing field rises a bank of decaying shale, an honour box asks for a $2 donation to support the school’s football team. Across the bank scurry children with hammers and small shovels, methodically examining every slab of shale for imprints of leaves. We find impressions of fan-like gingkos, slender straps of grass and bundles of rushes between the book-like pages of stone. Most treasured of all, a large section of Sequoia leaves, preserved so well you can see the veins in the leaves. Today these trees stand tall in groves along the coast, towering sentinels found only in cool moist forests. Revealed in the desert sun for the first time in millions of years, the leaves tell a tale of a cooler, moister time before the Cascade Mountains rose up and deprived this land of all but a few drops of annual rain.
In Fossil, early on a Sunday morning, we treat ourselves to pancakes with luscious local strawberries and cream in a homely restaurant with worn linoleum floors and walls hung with old photographs of loggers in heroic poses; prints fading to bone white in their frames. Some local children run in and ask for coffee, the waitress says she’ll have to ask Grandpa. Later, Grandpa himself pumps gasoline into our vehicle and tells us that he decided to move here when Bend became too crowded, probably twenty years ago.
From Fossil, stomachs full of pancakes and coffee, we head west towards the Clarno Unit. Here you can walk a trail that slowly winds its way back through time to the fossilized bed of a river, preserved in stone and jumbled in a pile of boulders at the base of a group of towering cliffs. Within the boulders lie stone casts of branches, leaves, even whole tree trunks, mixed with fern fronds and the occasional small bone. Beneath the boulders desert flowers bloom in the early spring sunshine, while old desiccated tumble weeds bump and roll in the lightest of breezes and falcons cruise the cliff face hunting for pigeon and quail.
Finally full of the desert spaces, high plains isolation and bizarre geology of central Oregon, lungs full of the dry mountain air, senses enlivened by the colours and textures of this spectacular land, we head back towards the coast. We climb through the Cascade range, decapitated Mount St Helens squatting to the north and the shark’s tooth profile of Mount Hood to the south, and descend once more into the clouds, fog and the deep, deep green.
If You Go:
The John Day National Monument is to the southwest of Portland, Oregon. Isolated and remote, driving time from Portland is about four hours, or a long day’s drive from Seattle to the north.
Getting Around: Public transportation is sparse to non-existent, and regions like the Painted Hills lie several kilometers from the nearest major road, so traveling by car is essential. Cars can be rented from all major agencies in Portland.
Where to Stay: Tourist accommodation can be found in some of the smaller towns. Camping facilities are plentiful, cheap and well maintained with toilet facilities and running water. Oregon Department of Transport provides several sites that operate on an honour system, and there are also privately owned camping facilities scattered throughout the region.
When to Visit: Spring and autumn are the best times, with reasonable temperatures and good weather. It can be extremely hot during the summer, while in winter heavy rains, snow and icy roads may be encountered.