The Painted Hills of John Day Fossil Beds

I'm the Rockhopper. Do not adjust your screen, because these colors are real. Today we're going to explore the painted hills of John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. You can't walk on the hillsides here because it scars them. However, there are a few trails, most of them quite short, such as this one, the Painted Cove Nature Trail. As you can see, it's got a little boardwalk here. The boardwalk weaves through some brightly colored earthen hills. Along the Painted Cove Trail you'll find little interpretive signs. If you're a serious hiker, don't get your hopes up. This entire trail loop is only not even a half mile long. You can take a trail along Painted Cove that goes up to a little hill and overlooks it. Looking for another short trail? You might want to take this one. It takes you out to some fossils of the Don Redwoods. They were thought to be extinct until found in a small valley in China. Today, Don Redwood, or Metasequoia, as it's also called, is the state fossil of Oregon. Here's the hill where the fossils are contained, and this sign points out the type of fossils that can be found here. Hornbeam leaf. Here we have an oak leaf. Pine seeds. And your Metasequoia fossils. The Don Redwood. Let's be bad for just a moment, step over the fence, and check out some of these fossils. Here's a fossilized leaf right here. Can you see it? Right there. There's no collecting here. So we're not going to take anything, we're just looking. Looks like another leaf impression right there. And just over from that, a leaf impression right here. And another one right there. As it gets later in the day, the colors really start to come out. This is the Red Hill Trail here. How many of you out there think that this trail is going to lead to a hill that's colored red? Raise your hand. Well, we'll find out. This short trail takes you to, appropriately, a hill that is quite red. The painted hills are an ancient record of a changing climate. The red soils indicate a warmer, wetter environment, where the soil was usually damp and punctuated with ponds and lakes. Yellow soil indicates what was drier earth. The black spots are caused by concentrations of manganese, believed to be left there by manganese-fixing plants that once grew there. The forest had both deciduous and coniferous trees. Sometimes when you're traveling the dirt roads and the back roads across the country, well, you come across people who are stuck. And this one is stuck pretty good. So, you know, you get out there and you help each other out. In this case, right in the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. And we're good. They're out. So we'll do a little more exploring this morning. The colors, man. The colors. Looking at the colors in some of these hills is like being on an acid trip. Not that I would know. But it certainly is a magical experience. There are little reminders out here that you are indeed in the desert. Like this cactus here. It's early October out here and the weather is fantastic this year. Warm. Sunny. Very little wind. There are other sections of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. But this trail here appears to be the longest in this section. So, we'll take it. There's the Carroll Rim Trail viewpoint. Perfect. So it says three quarters of a mile to get to the top of that hill. So this trail is going to take us up to the Carroll Rim viewpoint. I'm not the only one on the trail. The trail is now following a ridge. We've reached the end of the trail. So have a seat. It also overlooks the Painted Hills region. The colors aren't as striking now due to the time of day. Last night the sun was in a different position and closer to the horizon. Which really made the hills glow with color. So I'm glad I arrived in the afternoon. It gives you a view of the surrounding hills. I hope you enjoyed exploring the Painted Hills area of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument with me. Don't forget to give me a thumbs up, like, and subscribe. Until next time, this is Rock Hopper. I'll see ya!