The John Day Fossil Beds are made up three separate units: Clarno, Painted Hills, and Sheep Rock. The Painted Hills is the most visited. The red and tan colors of the Painted Hills are composed of fossil soils from deciduous forests over 33 million years ago. These soils are very fragile (so please be sure to stay on the trails and Don’t Hurt the Dirt!) There are five small trails (0.25 miles to 1.3 miles) to hike and see more viewpoints of the surrounding area. Different times of the day and seasons can bring out different tones in the soils but the afternoons are best lit for photography as well as wildflowers in the Spring. [National Park Service]

This ride encircles the 4,700-foot Sutton Mountain which, like the Painted Hills, boasts paleasols that are “formed by layers of ash, lava and volcanic mud trapping ancient plants and animals, inadvertently preserving them for millennia. Over time, erosion has revealed these ancient fossils and sediments, creating a beautiful geologic story dating back as far as 40 million years.” [Bend Bulletin]

Sutton Mountain is home to bountiful wildflowers in the spring (including the threatened arrowleaf thelypody and Peck’s milkvetch species) and vibrant herds of pronghorn, elk, and mule deer.

In November 2021, Oregon Senators Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden introduced the Sutton Mountain Preservation Act that would establish a new Sutton Mountain National Monument to conserve these public lands. Their innovative bill would capitalize on the public’s 29-year investment and stewardship of iconic Sutton Mountain since it came into public ownership in 1992. [Oregon Natural Desert Association]

Descending the paved road through the canyon makes the previous climb so worth it!

The locality was originally named Contention after a quarrel between two of its prominent residents. The Contention post office opened in 1886. A daughter of one of the residents involved in the quarrel suggested that the name Twickenham, after the London suburb in England, would be more dignified than Contention. As it happened, the Contention post office closed in 1895, and a Twickenham post office opened in 1896 in the same general vicinity. It closed in 1917. [Wikipedia]

The river basin drains nearly 8,100 square miles of central and northeast Oregon. Absent of dams for 281 miles, the John Day is one of the longest free-flowing rivers in the continental United States and the longest undammed tributary of the Columbia. Elevations range from 265 feet at the confluence with the Columbia River to over 9,000 feet at the headwaters in the Strawberry Mountain Range.

The Priest Hole Recreation Site is open year-round for swimming, fishing, camping, and hiking. There is an outhouse available for restrooms. [Bureau of Land Management]