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John Day Fossil
Beds, Oregon
click on photos to enlarge
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| Painted hills in the John Day Fossil Beds Monument. |
Getting there
Planning to spend a few days in the Eastern Oregon July heat,
we pack our westy with supplies and drinking water.
Take I-5 south, then east along the Columbia Gorge.
A short break in Hood River, watching the wind surfers.
Then take 197 south, passing through the small town of Maupin,
seasonally populated
by river rafters.
Enter the desert plains, and as we reach the appropriately
named Bakeoven Road, the temperature is rising.
Stop in Shaniko, a rehabilitated western ghost town,
and meet Pat at the local grocery/gas station.
If you like to hear stories about the local area and places to
visit, top off your tank in Shaniko and ask for Pat.
According to her, the international bike racers ride through every
June on their cross-country tour (Portland to Florida), and
change their clothes in the
"Superman" phone booth outside
the store to gain "super
strength".
Touching the phone booth brings good luck, says Pat.
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| Back street of ghost town, Shaniko. Main street is quite refurbished, especially the Historic Shaniko Hotel, no longer weather-beaten. |
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| Eerie jail transport. |
Next stop, Fossil, the town.
Visit at the local high school to try our luck digging for
fossilized plants on the hill behind the football field.
Here the public is invited to collect fossils to take home.
We find a few leaf patterns in stone.
If you ever go to Fossil, bring a folding shovel and hammer.
Campground by the river
By evening, we find a quiet place by the John Day River
on BLM land. Small campground there called Service Creek.
The water in the river is clean and warm, and the current is mild,
with a great "swimming hole". Decide this is to be our
"headquarters".
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| Moon rise over the campground. |
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| Westie camping by John Day River. |
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| Laid-back rafters on the warm, lazy river. |
Next morning after breakfast and a swim, enroute to the Painted Hills.
A short stop in Mitchell to top off with gas.
There we meet Henry, the bear, 27 months old, bred in a Iowan farm.
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| Henry, the bear, happily eating carrots. It was the most scary to be in the cage with the bear, but the owner assured us it was fine, as long he was there. |
Touring the Monument
The monument encompasses 14,000 acres in 3 separate units:
Clarno, Painted Hills, and Sheep Rock, with visitor's center.
Here is one of the richest fossil beds in the world,
showing a fossil record of plant and animal life that existed
here 54 million to 6 million years ago in the ancestral Cascades.
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| Click on monument map to enlarge. |
It's hot, and the windy roads go on forever, as we ride on the
Oregon Scenic Byway, Journey Through Time.
Too many places to visit, and distances in the monument are large.
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| Scenic Byway through Monument. |
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| Snake hit by previous car. Could be a rattlesnake, but most snakes here are non-poisonous bull snakes and garter snakes. Rattlesnakes are poisonous, but rarely deadly; however, first aid after a bite is necessary, according to a leaflet. |
Painted Hills Unit
The scenery reminds one more of "Death Valley" than Eastern Oregon.
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Click to go to Painted Hills Unit. |
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Click to go to Sheep Rock Unit with visitor's center and museum exhibits. |
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| Palisade cliffs are remnants of volcanic
mudflows called "lahars." Tropical plants that grew here 50 million years ago are preserved in the oldest of the Cenozoic era's layers. |
Stuck in the sand
In the evening, back at headquarters by the river cg.
Decide to park the westy closer to the river, and before I
know, it's stuck. All four wheels sinking into the soft sand.
A couple of hours later, digging and jacking, and hauling rocks
to fill in the holes under the wheels. It's dark, and we get worried
about rattlesnakes and such, so we give up and go to sleep.
The westy is leaning too much to turn on the refrigerator.
In the morning, wake up to the thought of still being stuck,
and then it starts to rain. Soft sand turns to soft mud.
It's not much fun being stuck with a heavily loaded westy,
and we're getting a bit anxious. Time to make a plan.
Remove all the unnecessary weight (unload all gear),
reduce air pressure in the tires from 50 psi to 28 psi,
some more jacking and digging and rock hauling.
'Voila', the vanagon churns its way out of the sink hole,
and up to the solid ground. We're mobile again!
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| Back on solid ground. Sand was softer than it looked. |
On Saturday, meet up with the wetwesties at Maupin
for a potluck and campout. Nice to see everyone.
Thanks to Terry and Karen for organizing the campout.
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| Wetwesties camping at Maupin. |
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| Potluck party under the cool shade trees. |
Drove 911 miles roundtrip, and used 51 gallons of regular gas.
Our automatic Westy performed flawlessly.
Click for more trip reports.