Painted Hills

About this place

The Painted Hills are a geologic site in Wheeler County, Oregon, and one of the three units of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, along with Sheep Rock and Clarno. Covering about 12.7 square kilometres, they lie about 13 km in a straight line north-west of the small town of Mitchell and are listed among the Seven Wonders of Oregon. The hills began to form about 35 million years ago, when ash and pumice from volcanic eruptions in the Cascade Mountains drifted about 160 km east and settled here. Over time the ash was buried, compacted and weathered into soil and clay, and today the hills are made mostly of hard claystone. Their bands of colour record swings between wet and dry climates at the transition from the Eocene to the cooler Oligocene. Rounded hills striped in red, gold, tan and black roll across the high desert, and their colours shift with the light, glowing at sunrise and sunset and deepening after rain. Short trails and a boardwalk lead between the mounds and to overlooks, and yellow wildflowers bloom among the sagebrush in spring. Visiting is free. Stay on the trails and boardwalk, as footprints scar the fragile clay for years, and bring plenty of water, as there is little shade.