Mitchell, Ore. – On our way to Pendleton we took a quick detour to see one of Oregon’s best kept secrets: the Painted Hills.

The only signs from the freeway are in the occasional lavender- and brick-stained mounds of dirt etched into the hillside. But head north off the highway, into the Painted Hills Unit, and the patterns of colorful hills are all you can see for thousands of acres.

This is what Oregon looked like about 30 million years ago, according to the National Parks Service brochure. The hills provide fossil evidence of an environment vastly different than what we can see today, one with regular volcanic eruptions and as many as 60 inches of rain annually, compared with about 11 today.

Leaf-prints, fossilized wood, and even animal remains have been found on this land, preserved largely because the hills here are so protected. It is difficult to imagine what the first humans to stumble upon these hills must have felt; the colors are so extreme that first impressions are that they are little more than a mirage.

We had to move on quickly, and spent only an hour in the hills. If you ever find yourself in central Oregon, just east of the Cascades, do not miss the opportunity to see a land so magnificently preserved that fossil evidence is scattered across the terrain.

Posted by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore on Sunday, September 24th, 2006 | Email This Post

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