Hwy-140 trudges on monotonously from Klamath Falls into southeast Oregon, though a better route is via US-97, then Hwy-126/26 from Bend, where you'll emerge from a brief passage through the
Ochoco National Forest
into a bare, sun-scorched landscape of ochre and beige. Many features here are named after
John Day
, an employee of fur trapper John Jacob Astor. Of special importance are the
John Day Fossil Beds
, which hold some of the most revealing fossil formations in the US, preserved in a layer of volcanic ash as the Cascades sputtered into being, just after the extinction of the dinosaurs sixty-five million years ago. There are three fossil-bed sites, the most westerly of which is the
Painted Hills
unit, six miles off US-26 down a paved side road. Striped in shades of rust and brown, the surfaces of the sandcastle-like hills are quilted with rivulets worn by draining water. Back on US-26, thirty miles east, is the
Sheep Rock
unit, just north of the junction with Hwy-19. Here, the
visitors center
(Mon-Fri 9am-5pm; tel 541/987-2333,
) is in an old rancher's homestead and has a modest selection of fossils. A mile further north is the
Blue Basin
, a natural amphitheater where a mile-long trail leads past fossil replicas like a tortoise that hurtled to its death millions of years ago, and a saber-toothed cat.
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