What Are The Painted Hills And Where Are They?
The Painted Hills are listed as one of the seven wonders of Oregon along with the Columbia River Gorge, Crater Lake and other amazing places in the Beaver State. The painted Hills are located in Wheeler County near the town of Mitchell in the eastern part of the state.
The Painted Hills are located in of of three sections of John Day Fossil Bed National Monument. Volcanic eruptions of long ago contributed to their formation. Time, weathering and other natural processes contributed to the current colored look of the Painted Hills.
The area around John Day Fossil Beds is pretty far out in the middle of nowhere. There are no campground within the boundaries of the park but there are nearby camping areas outside John Day Fossil Beds. Some of the surrounding small towns have other lodging options available.
What Is It Like To Travel To And Photograph The Painted Hills At John Day Fossil Beds?
The Painted Hills at John Day Fossil beds are pretty far out in rural Oregon without a whole lot of civilization close by. There are some small towns but the closest sort of real town is that of Bend. Bend, Oregon is about a 2 hour drive and about 85 miles from the Painted Hills. If you are flying in, you’ll probably want to fly into the Portland, Oregon Airport.
Though there are three distinct units at John Dy Fossil Beds, it would probably be a stretch for most people to spend more than a few days there. If you plan to go to the Painted Hills and other parts of this National Monument, you may want to wrap in the Columbia River Gorge or other sights like Smith Rock State Park to make sure you have enough to see and do for a week.
If you’re flying in you’ll need to get a rental car and probably find a hotel in one of the small towns in the area. You could stay in Bend or somewhere along the Gorge and do day trips but that would be a lot of driving. If you’ll be taking a road trip, you’ll probably have more flexibility in where you stay. There are campgrounds in the area and some National Forest land where you can probably sleep in your car or setup camp for free or a minimal nightly fee.
All the roads around the Painted Hills are good paved roads, at least everything I drove on around there. There is no need for anything other than a regular passenger car unless you are driving in the winter.
The Painted Hills are itself is a relatively small area. There are less than 10 miles of roads in the Painted Hills unit. If you just want to drive around to see the sights you can do than in an hour or two. There are a few hiking trails in the Painted Hills that that add up to about 3 miles in total.
The other unites of John Day Fossil Beds National Monument are well worth visiting. Since the Painted Hills are one of the seven wonders of Oregon, that area is the biggest attraction at the monument. The Painted Hills are arguably the most scenic part of the monument and the most spectacular opportunity though there are nice photo spots elsewhere in the monument.
Photographing the Painted Hills is pretty straight forward and is easily done from easy to access viewpoints along the roads and trails in the Painted Hills unit.
What Does It Take To Get A Wall Art Quality Photo Of The Painted Hills At John Day Fossil Beds?
If you want to get a wall art quality photo of the Painted Hills, you can use the travel info above to help figure out how to get there and where you might want to stay. It is possible to get a great photo of the Painted Hills most any time of year. Lighting in the afternoon to evening is generally best so a leisurely day trip to the Painted Hills from Bend or the Gorge is a good option if photographing the Painted Hills during prime lighting is a goal.
When you plan your photo trip to the Painted Hills, it will be important to look at the weather for the day you plan to go. The main thing you want is for the sun to hit the Painted Hills as it starts to go down.
Clouds over the Painted Hills can add some texture to a photo, help fill the upper portion of the frame and make for a better overall photo. Some cloud cover can be good. If the cloud cover is wide spread enough to block the sun then the colors of the Painted Hills will, of course, be much more muted than if they are in direct sunlight. It’s an awesome sight and photo opportunity but good lighting makes it even better.
If you have a panoramic photo setup, the Painted Hills would be a good place to take it. The Painted Hills themselves are a long, wide landscape that would fit well in a panoramic shot. If you do not have a panoramic setup, you’ll need to zoom in to fill the frame or incorporate more of the foreground or the sky to fill the frame.
What Is The Best Gear For Photographing The Painted Hills At John Day Fossil Beds?
When you photograph the Painted Hills, chances are you will be photographing them from the Painted Hills Overlook Trail. As that is an overlook, you will be a fair distance away from the Painted Hills when photographing them. There is no hiking trail on the Painted Hills and as such you should not be hiking on the Painted Hills or elsewhere where there is not trail. This is a fragile landscape that needs to be preserved.
Since you will be photographing the Painted Hills from a distance, you will probably want a good DSLR or mirrorless camera with a moderately long zoom lens. Something like a 24mm -105mm lens can be a good all around lens for the Painted Hills. If you want to get closeup shots of smaller portions of the Painted Hills without a lot of foreground or sky in the photos then you’ll probably want to have something that goes up to 200mm or even more for more closeup photos.
In the late afternoon or evening as the sun sets, the lighting will probably be bright enough as the sun sets to not need a tripod but I always recommend a tripod. A tripod helps to frame up the exact scene you want to photograph. If you are in low light conditions a tripod will hold the camera steady and help you get a sharper photo if you use the built in timer on the camera or a shutter release. If you want to take bracketed photos to combine late for an HDR shot, you’ll want a tripod for that as well.
As noted above, the actual Painted Hills are a kind of long, wide landscape. In areas like this, panoramic photos can be better than the standard 4×6 image ratio that your camera will probably spit out by default. You can of course crop a standard 4×6 photo to a panoramic view but if you take a frames for a stitched panorama you’ll end up with a higher quality file better for creating large wall art quality prints. This is a landscape where you should bring your panoramic setup. If it is something like the heavy Nodal Ninja pano head like mine, you will have to carry it a short distance but not far enough for it to be much extra effort.
A circular polarizer an be handy to have to make the colors more vibrant and give the skies a nice deep blue color. It’s not a necessity but if you have one it is worth bringing. I always carry one and use it often.
What Is The Story Behind This Photo Print The John Day Painted Hills?
In late 2013 I was on the 4th year of what turned out to be a 10 year road trip to the national parks and all kinds of other cool places in the US and Canada. I’d spent some of the fall in and around the Columbia River Gorge after discovering the Columbia River Gorge School House Hostel in Bingen, Washington. Back then I was still using the print “Hostel Handbook” to find cool hostels and this was one of them.
The School House Hostel is an old school turned into a hostel. For a bit over $20/night you get a bunk in an old school room. The mattresses were pretty old. Depending on the condition of the mattress on the bed I got sometimes I’d throw my camping pad on top of the mattress for a little extra comfort. A guy named Stewart ran the place. He was a good guy but didn’t always seem terribly excited about the actual hostel duties. He had a fascination with birds and did some local bird counts and other cool things with the local parks or forest service or something like that.
The school house had a couple HUGE bunk rooms and then some privates. In the colder months I could sometimes request a bunk and be given a private because they didn’t want to spend the cash to heat the massive bunk rooms. Sometimes I’d end up with a roommate in the privates (they had a multiple beds). One dude was kind of strange but harmless and not as strange as some other hostel roommates.
The hostel had old school style bathrooms with showers along the hallway and old card catalogs in the hallways. There was a huge industrial kitchen downstairs that you had to go outside to get to. It was a nice inexpensive place to plop down for a week or more to explore Columbia River Gorge, have a kitchen, wifi, a decent bed and a big screen TV to let my brain rot a bit.
After spending a fair amount of time at the Bingen School House Hostel, it was time to move on. Where would I go? I wasn’t sure. I’d seen some photos of the Painted Hills at John Day Fossil Beds in the past. That wasn’t too far away so why not head over there. I had no idea where I’d stay but as long as I had the car it really didn’t matter. I could sleep in the car most anywhere.
After sleeping in and cooking a big breakfast before departing the hostel , I was off to explore another of the Seven Wonder of Oregon, the Painted Hills! The weather forecast was for a mix of sun and clouds but at the time I wasn’t paying to much attention to the weather as I was still more enthralled with just seeing these places that obsession over the perfect photo.
After about a 3 hour drive, I pulled into the Painted Hills. It was a bit late in the season for the Painted Hills but still a decent time to be there. By this time of year the crowds had faded. There were a handful of other cars but not more than 5 or 10 in the whole Painted Hills unit of John Day Fossil Beds. By the time I got up to the Painted Hills Overlook, the light was starting to fade and clouds were rolling in. I took few shots as the weather and light deteriorated but didn’t get what I was hoping for. As darkness fell, I withed I’d paid more attention to the weather and stayed another night at the School House Hostel. I didn’t have anywhere in mind to spend the night out here.
After driving back out of the Painted Hills area, I stopped and looked at an Atlas to try to figure out where to go. Hotels were out of the budget. There were no hostels in the area. The monument had no campgrounds and I couldn’t sleep in my car in the monument. IN the end I just picked a road that looked like it would led to somewhere out of the way and drove. When there was a fairly remote place to pull off, I did. I waited until most traffic in the area seemed to die down before drifting off to sleep.
The next morning I woke up at a reasonable hour and headed back to the Painted Hills. With not much else to do I decided to hike all the trails there and took some cool photos of the sights and formations along the trails, hung out, watched the lighting, eat and take a nap in the car instead of running around all over the place.
As afternoon approached I decided to break out the camera again. The skies were pretty clear over the Painted Hills but there were some clouds that intermittently blocked the sun from hitting the Painted Hills at times. From late afternoon through sunset, the partly cloudy lighting conditions continued. Wispy clouds hovered over the Painted Hills but slightly thicker cloud cover lingered behind me. The Painted Hills were never fully bathed in the afternoon sunlight but much of it did shine through at times.
I again stayed until the sun went down before heading out of the park.Moderately satisfied with the photos from the day, I again found an out of the way place to pull off the road and get some sleep in a spot I hoped nobody would bother me.
What Formats Is This Painted Hills Sunset Wall Art Print Available?
This print of the Painted Hills At John Day Fossil Beds in Oregon is available in sizes up to 40×60 inches. You can choose from paper, canvas, metal, acrylic, and wood. If you’d like to hang it in an area with diffused lighting, any finish on any material will look great. Anything with a glossy or metallic surface finish will have a nice bright and vibrant look. A print with a matte finish will have a more subtle classic type of look. If you’ll be hanging it in an area with bright direct lighting, a matte finish will probably look best and avoid reflections associated with the more reflective glossy or metal print finishes.
If you’d like to jazz up the bathroom, this image looks great on a very durable shower curtain and can be paired with matching bath towels. For the living room, rec room or living room, a Sherpa fleece blanket makes a great choice and can be paired with throw pillows in a variety of sizes to fit the space you have in mind.
If you need something to replace the plastic shopping bags that are disappearing from grocery stores and other shops, you might consider a canvas tote bag or two with the Painted Hills on it. The tote bags look awesome, a super durable and will last for years. The large ones can be used as beach bags or most any other purpose. If you’ve got a new Apple or Samsung phone, a new Painted Hills phone case may be just the product for you.
Finally, if you’d like a puzzle, this image comes in 500 and 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzles. The puzzle will come in a cardboard box with the image on the box for reference. These make great gifts for any fan of John Day Fossil Beds.
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