Photos

As I was walking in the outback sections of the Painted hills Unit of the John Day fossil Beds National Monument I came across this section that is seldom seen as it is a walk from the roadway or from the main overlook trail. Peter Boehringer and I walked through this minute valley in April and had noticed the resin piles formed in circles. These are the remnants of trees that have since been covered with ash deposits from the ancient Clarno Volcanoes that thrived and exploited their powers across the landscape during the Miocene Era.
In this image the small Goldish Piles are located on the second hill in the foreground from the left and is most visible on the whiter ash deposits.
The colors and patterns in this hillside remind me of the Native American Symbols we have seen in the Southwest. The colors here are more of a drier climate span during the eruptions as the absence of water has kept the ash deposits lighter in hue and without the minerals we see in the main part of the Unit.
This image was taken from the top of one of the hillsides with permission from a past caretaker that I know that worked at the Painted Hills Unit years past.