Cowboys shepherd herds of cattle across the dusty Central Oregon plains of my imagination. There, tumbleweed rolls, sluggish, across the barren freeways; rock formations withstand millennia of long, hot summers and bitter winters; and cinnamon-shaded ponderosa pine trees loom over the high desert.

This fantasy arose from the first—and so far only—time I traveled east of the Cascades. That experience in the summer of 2013 introduced me to the community of Sunriver and desolate landscapes that bear little resemblance to the Willamette Valley with which I’m so familiar. The four-day trip laid bare how little I knew of the state I call home and proclaim to love: If Sunriver hosted this much country-fried beauty, what more did the high desert region have to offer? And, inspiring an unsatiated curiosity, it indirectly galvanized today’s trip to one of the Seven Wonders of Oregon, as designated by the state’s tourism commission.

The rusty canyon at the heart of Smith Rock State Park, with its sprawling web of hiking trails, daredevil rock-climbing routes, and mesmerizing rock formations, captivated my imagination before I knew much else about the park or why it mattered. The outback playground I’d observed on YouTube and Instagram mirrored my mind’s platonic ideal of the Wild West.

That sense of awe dissipates when I park at the easternmost lot, look over the Crooked River, and eye the hillside rising from its shore with the kind of weary suspicion typically saved for door-to-door Jehovah’s Witnesses. A handful of hikers ascend the trail that cleaves the hillside like a scythe, mere inches from a steep drop-off that falls hundreds of feet into the river below. For the enormity of these plains and the wide-open expanse of the high desert, the ridge-hugging trail looks positively claustrophobic from my car. These hillsides looked much more majestic from afar.

My crippling fear of heights may yet tether me to the low-lying trails that parallel the riverbank, but that terror yields to a recurring reverence as I descend to the canyon floor. I walk amid gnarled juniper branches twisting in every direction, sun-stained shrubs, and soft dust that flecks my glasses after a few steps. The rocky hills surrounding me glow with a warm, desert hue that envelops my surroundings like a real-life Instagram filter.

I cross the Crooked River at the base of the canyon, look at my map, and don’t see a viable route that circumvents Misery Ridge, the 1,000-foot hillside trek that unnerved me from the comfort of my car. Safety first, I reason internally, in an attempt to skip Misery RIdge. But I can’t justify the seven-hour round-trip without seeing the view through.

Four minutes and seemingly 400 feet of elevation pass before I take my first water break. I’m nowhere near the steep straightaway that uncorked dread in my stomach’s pit, and for the first time I finally internalize what it means to climb a thousand feet in one excruciating mile. (It’s roughly the same as climbing Portland’s tallest building—the U.S. Bancorp Tower, “Big Pink” to the locals—twice.)

The trail eventually straightens out and follows that much-feared ridge over the Crooked River. No ropes or guardrails offer assurance that I won’t fall to my death in the canyon below. Don’t look down, I mutter under my breath.

I arrive at the top of the hillside after a deliberate slog and assume—naively, as I’ll soon discover—the worst is over.

Another set of switchbacks return after a few more stops for water and prayer. At this point, the trail alternates between steep, craggy rock scrambles and endless flights of wooden stairs, filled with hardened dirt and gravel. Frodo and Sam endured less in entering Mordor.

I scramble desperately to the top of the bluff after what feels like hours, sit on a smooth rock, and finally behold a Central Oregon even better than the one I dreamed about.

The azure Crooked River snakes through the khaki-colored canyon, thick pine trees line its banks, and lingering clouds linger overhead, seemingly close enough to touch. Gnarled juniper, rocks the color of light beer, and towering rocky formations, their craggy spines resembling an erratic stock market chart, fill in the rest of the landscape. In a moment that would seem too hokey for fiction, I spy a tumbleweed somehow rolling carelessly uphill.

Even after decades of living just across the state line, and after a year of calling Oregon home, I still associated the state’s beauty with the idyllic Crater Lake, impressive Multnomah Falls, or a rugged coastline. But, upon arriving at the summit of this windswept bluff, I see the small-mindedness of those fantasies. Here, in what seemed like the middle of nowhere a few hours earlier, the unforgiving desert, tree-lined canyon, and peaceful Crooked River all nudge up against each other, all the way to the ends of the Earth.

It’s better than the sunny settings in old Clint Eastwood movies, more fascinating than the scenes I’d conjured, more beautiful than any photo could capture. It’s real.