The Painted Hills are part of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument and are located near Mitchell, Oregon on Highway 26. It’s actually a pretty compact area and it includes five trails and a couple of viewpoints so that you can both look at and get out into the hills. They say the Painted Hills are best seen in the late afternoon or after moisture but I have to add one more key timing element to that list and that is to see the hills when the wildflowers in the area are in bloom (early June in our case) because they add a tremendous amount of color to the borders of the Painted Hills.
