Painted Hills
Colorful dirt in the middle of nowhere.
Formally, the complete name is ”Painted Hills Unit of John Day Fossil Beds National Monument.” But if you say “We went to Painted Hills” pretty much everyone around Central Oregon knows where you went. Outside of Oregon, probably few people have heard of this subunit of the National Park system. In some, mostly selfish, ways this is a good thing. It means there are a lot fewer visitors (148,000 for the whole monument in 2021) than, say, Indiana Dunes NP (about the same size but 3.17 million visitors in 2021).
In some ways the low number of visitors is too bad. People are missing an area of striking natural colors - from the birds…
… to the dirt itself. How striking those colors are change from minute to minute as the light changes and season to season as the soil moisture changes with precipitation (or lately lack of precipitation). For the best color, hope for a cloudy day after a rain or snowmelt. Someday we hope to visit after a snowstorm to get the contrast with the white snow, stormy skies and brilliant dirt. Until then enjoy the Painted Hills. Just don’t tell anyone about this colorful bit of Central Oregon.
Here is a gallery of some images we have made of the Painted Hills. You should click on each one to see the full image as these are cropped to fit the grid format.
