Jamie Hale/The Oregonian

From waterfalls and wildflowers, to snowy mountains and desert roads, there’s a lot to love about Oregon. Every corner of our beautiful state features distinct natural wonders that never fail to fill us with awe.

In 2019, I once again traveled around Oregon to capture images of our diverse landscape, bringing back stories and travel guides to help you find your own way around the state.

These 40 photos are our favorites from my year of adventuring. I took horseback trip through the wilderness, hiked fire-ravaged trails, discovered hidden gems in the desert, wandered the Oregon coast in winter, and explored some of the most remote destinations in the state.



More adventures are in store for 2020, so look for more stories and photos to come. In the meantime, I hope these images from a year gone by help inspire you to strike off yourself. Pictures are nice, but nothing beats seeing the Pacific Northwest in person.

READ MORE: Our 40 best Northwest travel photos of 2018

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Jamie Hale/The Oregonian

Two of the Three Sisters and Black Crater peek up over the mist in central Oregon, seen from the trail to the top of Black Butte.

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Jamie Hale/The Oregonian

Wahclella Falls cascades into a pool in the Columbia River Gorge. Closed by the Eagle Creek fire in 2017, the trail reopened to the public in August.

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Jamie Hale/The Oregonian

Wildflowers bloom at the Tom McCall Nature Preserve at Rowena Crest in the Columbia River Gorge. Fields of yellow balsamroot and purple lupine flowers greeted hikers on the McCall Point Trail in spring.

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Jamie Hale/The Oregonian

Crack in the Ground is an ancient volcanic fissure near Christmas Valley in the high desert of central Oregon. An easy hiking trail leads through the fissure that measures more than two miles long and up to 70 feet deep.

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Jamie Hale/The Oregonian

A lodgepole pine sapling grows at the tip of a fallen log, perched above the churning waters of the Deschutes River along the the Deschutes River Trail south of Bend.

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Jamie Hale/The Oregonian

The Wallowa Mountains dominate the horizon on the grassy hills of the Zumwalt Prairie in June. The northeast Oregon preserve is managed by the Nature Conservancy, and is home to blooming wildflowers each spring.

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Jamie Hale/The Oregonian

Inside Devils Punchbowl, a collapsed sea cave near Otter Rock on the central Oregon coast. A viewpoint above the cave is always accessible, but to get inside hikers must go at low tide.

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Jamie Hale/The Oregonian

Indian paintbrush flowers bloom on the hills above Thunder Rock Cove, a viewpoint found within the Samuel H. Boardman State Scenic Corridor on the southern Oregon coast.

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Jamie Hale/The Oregonian

Mount Hood is covered in a fresh coat of winter snow, seen from Bennett Pass in the Mount Hood National Forest, accessible by snowshoes or skis.

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Jamie Hale/The Oregonian

A guided tour at the Oregon Caves National Monument and Preserve leads through an ancient marble cave system, found beneath the Siskiyou Mountains in southwest Oregon.

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Jamie Hale/The Oregonian

A jet boat tour with Jerry's Rogue Jets goes up and down the lower Rogue River from Gold Beach, passing wildlife and beautiful scenery along the way.

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Jamie Hale/The Oregonian

Darlingtonia californica, also called cobra lillies, are carnivorous pitcher plants that are grown on the Oregon coast near Florence, at the Darlingtonia State Natural Site.

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Jamie Hale/The Oregonian

Ramona Falls is illuminated on a sunny afternoon in late September on Mount Hood.

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Jamie Hale/The Oregonian

Vineyards near Dundee turn color for the fall, blanketing the Willamette Valley wine country in yellow.

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Jamie Hale/The Oregonian

A wooden platform gives a view of the primary sea stack at Short Beach, a tucked-away cove near Oceanside on the north Oregon coast.

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Jamie Hale/The Oregonian

The sun sets over the Astoria-Megler Bridge on a clear winter day at the Oregon coast.

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Jamie Hale/The Oregonian

A horse drinks from Santiam Lake in the Eight Lakes Basin of central Oregon, part of a horseback trip through the Mount Jefferson Wilderness.

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Jamie Hale/The Oregonian

Soaking up a beautiful fall day at Alvord Hot Springs, a privately-owned hot spring in remote southeast Oregon, where hot water flows into two soaking pools next to the Alvord Desert.

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Jamie Hale/The Oregonian

The view from inside a cave at low tide at Otter Crest Beach on the central Oregon coast.

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Jamie Hale/The Oregonian

The Oregon Dunes Day Use Area offers several miles of off-trail hiking through the ever-changing Oregon Dunes, with paths that lead to a quiet beach.

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Jamie Hale/The Oregonian

An old abandoned homestead and windmill are found on the side of County Road 5-14C near Christmas Valley in central Oregon.

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Jamie Hale/The Oregonian

Peering into Kiger Gorge as fall foliage and snow converge in early October on Steens Mountain, a fault-block mountain in the far southeastern corner of Oregon.

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Jamie Hale/The Oregonian

Morning mist hangs over Odell Lake at the Trapper Creek Campground in Oregon's central Cascades.

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Jamie Hale/The Oregonian

The Wahkeena Trail winds through a forest badly burned by the Eagle Creek fire, found above Multnomah Falls. The trail reopened to the public in March.

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Jamie Hale/The Oregonian

Steens Mountain is seen from the high desert on the eastern side of the fault-block mountain in southeast Oregon. Fields-Denio Road leads alongside this side of Steens.

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Jamie Hale/The Oregonian

Green growth springs up in a burned forest in the Eight Lakes of the Mount Jefferson Wilderness in the central Oregon Cascades.

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Jamie Hale/The Oregonian

The Willamette River flows by Champoeg State Park in St. Paul, reflecting fall color in the ripples.

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Jamie Hale/The Oregonian

Yellow balsamroot wildflowers bloom on the slopes of Dog Mountain, as a gray mist hangs over the Columbia River Gorge in the spring.

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Jamie Hale/The Oregonian

A small shrub grows among the cracks of dried mud at Fossil Lake, a dry lakebed in the high desert of central Oregon, where paleontologists once discovered the fossilized remains of ancient animals.

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Jamie Hale/The Oregonian

A late fall sunset puts a sea stack and a gull in silhouette, at Cape Meares Beach near Tillamook on the Oregon coast.

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Jamie Hale/The Oregonian

Trails run through an ancient forest of coast redwoods at Stout Grove, a beautiful natural area found in Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park in the northern tip of California.

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Jamie Hale/The Oregonian

Tire Tacks lead through the Alvord Desert, a seasonally dry lake bed in the remote southeast corner of Oregon. Steens Mountain looms just beyond in the distance.

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Jamie Hale/The Oregonian

Clouds obscure the peak of Mount Hood, framed by early fall foliage on the trail to Ramona Falls inside the Mount Hood National Forest.

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Jamie Hale/The Oregonian

The Tamastslikt Cultural Institute is a museum dedicated to the history and culture of the Cayuse, Umatilla and Walla Walla tribes of Native Americans on the Columbia Plateau. The institute is found at the Wildhorse Casino in Pendleton.

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Jamie Hale/The Oregonian

Maple leaves turn pale yellow for fall at Champoeg State Park in St. Paul.

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Jamie Hale/The Oregonian

A white peafowl settles in for the night at the Pioneer Park Aviary in Walla Walla.

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Jamie Hale/The Oregonian

The Oak Island Trail on Sauvie Island passes through grassy meadows that are home to cattle, wildlife and oak trees, hemmed in on three sides by water.

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Jamie Hale/The Oregonian

A short trail leads to Twin Sisters, a rock formation above the Columbia River west of Walla Walla that has ties to Cayuse legend.

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Jamie Hale/The Oregonian

The newest segment of the Historic Columbia River Highway State Trail adds three miles of paved cycling and hiking pathway through the Columbia River Gorge, running from Wyeth State Park to Lindsey Creek. The new trail segment opened in August.

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Jamie Hale/The Oregonian

The sun sets over the beach at Cannon Beach, creating a colorful scene in the surf and sky in early winter.

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--Jamie Hale | jhale@oregonian.com | @HaleJamesB