I interrupt this weekly travel post with a comment to my fellow bloggers. I love reading and commenting on blog posts written by those I follow. I am way behind, taking over a week off from my reading as we did some traveling on our journey back to North Dakota for the summer. I’ll be playing “catch up” in my reading over the next few days.

Now back to our regularly scheduled travel post.

Kimberly, Oregon.

Last week, dear reader, I presented photos of our visit to the John Day Fossil Beds, Clarno Unit. At the time, we didn’t know there are actually three units to the national monument. I was to find out later that Clarno is the least visited unit of the park. Besides Clarno, there is Sheep Rock, with the nearby Thomas Condon Paleontology Center, and the Painted Hills unit. As we continued on our journey along the Journey Through Time Scenic Byway, we arrived at the Thomas Condon Paleontology Center, and basically, just across the highway, Sheep Rock, (the peak with the dark top) pictured above.

The Sheep Rock Unit features seven hiking trails, all short, ranging from .25 miles (.4 km) to 3.25 miles (5.2 km) in length. The longest trail is also the most difficult, rated on the website as moderate to strenuous with a 600-ft (183 m) elevation change. Details on the trails can be found here.

The center was open with limited capacity on the day we visited, but as I am writing this post in late March 2021, their website here tells me the center is now temporarily closed. Be sure to check the status of the facility online prior to making the trip (not that there isn’t plenty to see outdoors in the area.) All outdoor areas of the park are open at this writing.

Inside the center, behind a large viewing window, a worker painstakingly cleans a fossilized bone that was found somewhere in the area. Also inside the center, on display, are over 500 fossilized remains.

On a wall at the center, a set of plaques describe the park and its mission of preserving the record of 50 million years in fossilized remains. The building opened in 2005 and is named for a prominent 19th-century scientist who began the scientific collection and study of fossilized specimens. You can even see what’s going on inside the center and at the three units of the park in advance by checking the park’s webcams here.

The scenery along Highway 19, which is part of the Journey Through Time Scenic Byway, is spectacular. I happened to capture this image while traveling along the highway. I would not realize until reaching the center and reviewing images later that Sheep Rock is visible in the right background of this photo. In a future post, I’ll be featuring more images captured along this scenic byway.

The view of Sheep Rock and the nearby landscape is readily visible from the paleontology center’s parking lot. For my final image of this post, I combined three images to create a panoramic view of the Sheep Rock Unit of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. As always, I recommend clicking on the images to get a better view if your browser supports the function.

John Steiner

Fossil, Oregon.

Even the panoramic view in the image above cannot do justice to the magnitude of the cliffs in the John Day Fossil Beds, Clarno Unit. Highway 218 parallels a range of cliffs that is known as The Palisades. I must admit initial confusion as to the specific location of the fossil beds only to learn after visiting this unit that there are three units and an interpretive center, each some distance apart. Our GPS brought us to the Clarno unit, so we will begin our story here.

At Clarno, which I was to learn later is the least visited unit in the park, there is a small commons ground called the Palisades Picnic Area. There are ramadas (covered picnic tables) and basic facilities for a day trip. The park itself features three interpretive trails, the Arch Trail, the Trail of Fossils, and the Geologic Time Trail. All are short, the longest is Arch Trail, a half-mile out-and-back trail that climbs up to the base of the faces seen in the opening photo.

The self-directed interpretive trails feature descriptive signage pointing out various features. In the image above, the large rock behind the sign separated from the rocks above and fell to the base of the cliffs. At the point where it separated, a large collection of fossilized leaves were left exposed. Those fossils are all of the black spots on the rock.

From the National Park Service website here, I’ve reproduced this trail map to give you an idea of the trail details. From the parking area, it’s a short walk to the Geologic Time Trail which ends at the Trail of Fossils. At the far west end of that loop, if you feel like a bit of a climb (not difficult), you can hike to the base of the highest cliffs for a closer view of the arch that the trail name references.

The views of the Palisades from below are spectacular, but it truly is a small unit of the park. Unless you bring a picnic lunch or are deeply interested in studying the fossils that are plainly visible in the rocks, you can plan to stay only a couple of hours or so. You’ll find the Clarno Unit on highway 218 between Madras and Fossil.

We arrived in the morning, so though I hiked to the top of the Arch Trail, the area below the arch was deep in shadow. You can see the arch at the top of the dark area in the image above. It is truly a delicate arch. The best image I got was this one, captured with my telephoto lens from the base of the cliffs.

After leaving Clarno, our journey that day also took us to the Sheep Rock Unit and we visited the Paleontology Center. I will feature a visit to the center and photos of the Sheep Rock Unit, next week in part II of this Journey with Johnbo.

I submit for your approval, (or not), a gallery of images captured on our visit to the Clarno Unit of the John Day Fossil Beds. If your browser supports the function, you can click on an image in the gallery to enlarge it for a closer view, and to scroll through the gallery.

John Steiner