Journey to Fossil Through Oregon’s High Desert Time Machine

The road to Fossil, Oregon, doesn’t reveal itself easily. After a wrong turn that had us questioning our navigation and a necessary stop at the ranger station in Ukiah for an actual paper map — no cell service out here — we finally found ourselves on Highway 206, cutting through some of the most undeveloped and beautiful country I’ve ever seen.

The landscape looks straight out of a John Ford Western movie and seems to go on forever, with only some cattle fencing or the occasional farm or cattle operation breaking the views. We were frequently the only car on the road. Bluebirds flashed across the road ahead of us, and we spotted magpies and even grouse picking their way through the dirt on the side of the road.

Only about 450 people live in Fossil. There’s a school, of course, churches, a market. It’s the kind of place you might drive through without stopping if you didn’t know what you were looking for. But that would be a mistake.

Fossil is the county seat of Wheeler County, the least populated county in the state. It’s 175 miles, or about three hours, from Portland, Oregon. We made the trip to Fossil as part of a longer trip that had us driving from Eugene to Pendleton, then a little farther on to Wallowa, Joseph, and Enterprise in the northeast part of the state. After spending a few days there, we took the long way home and drove through Fossil and Shaniko, a former ghost town in the midst of a face lift. 

We drove four hours from Wallowa, Oregon, through the Umatilla National Forest; on Highway 206 through Ukiah, Heppner, and Condon; and down Highway 19 to Fossil.

Fossils in Fossil: Past and Present

Fossil is so-named because of the plethora of fossils that are found there. If you can find your way there, you can dig for fossils behind Wheeler High School. We drove up to the fossil beds on a sunny and warm September day, with the school’s football team practicing on the field right next to where we parked. The fossil beds are literally right behind the high school. 

Here, budding paleontologists can dig for fossils dating back to the Oligocene period, roughly 33 million years ago. The fossil beds formed on the bed of a shallow lake that existed here during the Oligocene. You will likely find leaves and branches of ancient deciduous trees that grew along adjacent stream banks and in nearby wetlands. Interpretive information helps you identify the fossils you unearth, which you are welcome to keep. A sign at the site requests $5 per individual fossil hunter or $15 for a family of four. Each additional child is $3, and children under 5 can hunt for fossils at no charge. 

The sign also reminds people of some basic etiquette. You are requested to stay within the designated area and use only hand digging tools. On the day we were there, there was a shovel in the small outbuilding, but the sign indicates that shovels are not allowed because they disrupt the fossils too much. The sign also requests that you limit your fossil collection to just a handful. There’s no one monitoring this, so it’s all on the honor system, but the fee and the site rules are a small price to pay to keep the site accessible and available to others who come after you. 

Our Fossil Foraging Experience

The sedimentary rock here is soft, making it suitable even for families with young children to carefully split apart stones and hunt for leaf imprints. Sometimes, the fossils are broken, but the outline of a leaf is usually clearly visible. Some interpretive signage helps collectors understand what they’ve found.

In the little outbuilding, we found a couple of child-size plastic buckets, which were perfect. We didn’t bring any of our own supplies because we just didn’t know what to expect, but it would have been ideal if we had brought our own buckets, small digging tools like a pick or even a screwdriver, and gloves. We happened to be there on a day when we were the only fossil hunters, but if another family had been there we would likely have been out of luck on using the tools. 

In a nearby interpretive center in Fossil, you can find a replica of a covered wagon used by pioneers and an interpretive sign explaining the history of the area. One of the many tidbits: A ranch owner who found mammoth bones was the one to name Fossil. 

As we noted earlier, this is a remote and rugged part of the state that gets cold at night and hot during the day. Visit Fossil any time of year when the weather is mild, just remember to go early in the day during the summer months to avoid extreme heat. Bring a sunhat, sunscreen, and pack plenty of water. If you plan to be there for more than an hour or two, bring a picnic lunch. 

Getting to Fossil, Oregon

This town, and most of the country around it, is hours away from any significant population center.

If you’re making this trip, be prepared with everything that you think you may need in the car with you. As noted earlier, we lost cell phone service, so don’t rely on your phone’s GPS to help you figure out where you’re going. Missing a turn means you could drive miles in the wrong direction without knowing it. Whether you have a budding paleontologist in your family who wants to find fossils or enjoy unique road trips, remote areas, and beautiful scenery — this trip is worthwhile either way.

I love that Oregon still has places where you can drive for an hour and see little more than sagebrush and sky. I also love these small towns which existed a long time before I came along to visit them. They are persisting and moving intentionally into the future by celebrating the things that make them unique. Fossil, Oregon is the kind of place that you’re not likely to go to on the way to somewhere else, simply because there’s not that much around it, and that’s OK. It’s worth a visit on its own.

There are two ways to drive from Wallowa, which take roughly the same amount of time. The more northwestern route takes you through Heppner on Oregon 53 and takes about four hours and 15 minutes. The other, more southwesterly option takes you through Monument and takes four-and-a-half hours. We went the northwestern way to get to Fossil.

The Clarno Unit of John Day Fossil Beds

After Fossil, we kept going on Highway 218 and passed through the Clarno Unit of John Day Fossil Beds, a National Monument in Oregon and another hour through high desert country; hills behind hills behind hills in some places and flat for as far as the eye can see in other places. There are two other units (regions) within the monument, called the Painted Hills Unit and Sheep Rock Unit. Both are more remote and require more driving, which we didn’t have time for on this trip. 

The Palisades are the most prominent landform as you enter this area. They are tall cliffs with the tops worn down into spires — you can’t miss them. The fossils here are remains of the landscape and animals that lived here before volcanic flows covered the area 54 to 40 million years ago. 

Not long after entering the Clarno Unit, road trippers will come across the “Geologic Time Trail” and a “Trail of Fossils” which is worth a stop for a leg stretch as well as the stunning views of The Palisades. Here, a short and flat trail meanders through the desert with occasional interpretive signs explaining what you’re seeing, and there are restrooms. 

Keep going farther into the unit for an abundance of hiking and biking trails, fishing and river rafting if you’re set up for that, and a museum at the Thomas Condon Visitors Center, which is in the Sheep Rock Unit.

The three units that make up John Day Fossil Beds National Monument are between one and two hours apart. My advice on visiting Fossil definitely applies here as well: Although it is a National Monument, it is remote and sparsely visited. Be prepared by having what you need in the car with you.

The ‘Ghost Town’ of Shaniko, Oregon

Another place that is worth a visit on its own is the “ghost town” of Shaniko. We arrived in Shaniko late on a Monday afternoon after visiting Fossil and driving through Antelope, an Oregon town made famous by the Netflix documentary “Wild Wild Country.”

Most of the town of Shaniko was closed, either not open at all on Mondays or closed up already. If we arrived earlier, we could have snagged a sandwich, coffee, or ice cream from the local lunch spot. Some call Shaniko a ghost town, but that’s never been completely true. There’s always been some activity here, just not very much. 

Shaniko Row, two roads that converge at a huge restored Italianate building called Shaniko Hotel (formerly known as the Columbia Southern Hotel), contains most of the buildings of interest.

It’s arguably the centerpiece of Shaniko Historic District and has been a saloon, bank, and dance hall at various points in the town’s history. Up the street lies an ice cream shop and a post office (both occasionally open, though don’t count on it), while Dead Format Music, which sits next to the hotel, sells records and guitar strings. They also broadcast music on 99.9 FM.

There were a couple of people working on restorations in the hotel, and when they saw us they stopped and said hello and told us we could look around. The town is trying to liven things up during the times of nice weather with farmers markets and live music, so hopefully that will start to attract some people to visit, stay, and eat here.

Just past town, we crossed the 45th parallel, the invisible line marking the halfway point between the equator and North Pole, and stopped for a photo with Mount Hood rising in the distance. 

It took us about nine hours of driving to get from Wallowa back home, not counting our stops — we stopped in Madras for a McDonald’s dinner (sometimes you take what you can get), then through Sisters as the sun went down behind the Cascade Range.

It was a long day of driving, but really — these are some of the most beautiful parts of the state you can see, and the landscape changes a lot. If you like vast areas with less human development, it’s the kind of road trip you’ll want to take.

Photos by Vanessa Salvia

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About the Author: Vanessa Salvia is the site owner and editor at Road Trips for Families. She is an accomplished freelance writer and editor with extensive experience creating high-quality content for various mediums. Her work spans writing articles for newspapers and magazines, crafting SEO-optimized web content, and assisting authors in polishing their book manuscripts. To learn more about her services and portfolio, visit vanessasalvia.com.