Cove Palisades

We have sadly arrived at the tail end of our summer trip. As is often the case, the return to California in the height of summer heat, includes encountering last minute changing of plans, due to wildfires. This year, our final week destinations were to include McArthur Burney State Park, La Pine State Park, and Lava Beds National Monument. There is an enormous and out of control wildfire happening right now in the area around Chico, and the smoke from this fire is sending thick smoldering ash clouds for hundreds of miles north and east. On the day we left Deschutes and headed southward, Richard was reviewing air quality maps with dismay. La Pine was mostly under a deep cloud of red to purple color coded yuck, indicating an AQI of 2-500.

We stopped to regroup at a Safeway in Madras, just before the air started turning smoky. We didn’t have a lot of good options and it wasn’t likely we’d be able to push through the smoke zones without traveling more than two hundred more miles. We threw out ideas and scanned Allstays and Campendium for anything that looked halfway decent where we could hunker down for a three night stay. I stumbled upon Cove Palisades and that pulled up a memory of going to an overlook and seeing this amazing canyon with water at the bottom. We looked it up and found there were open sites for one night, but not three. Here is where things get cool: Richard called a number, talked to the state park “reservation specialist,” and ended up getting us a camp host site with full hookups for three nights. Amazing. People really do want to help, and the park reservation person made it so we didn’t have to move into a new site every day. She warned us that the only downside might be that people would come up to us and ask us questions because they’d assume we were camp hosts. Richard let her know we’re very used to that with our trailer because it’s unusual and draws questions anyway. The best part: the campground was only ten miles away from where we were.

This place is incredible. You would have absolutely no idea there’s a giant canyon around until you get right to the edge and start going down the road. Then suddenly, the canyon valley opens up in front of you, with a spectacular view of carved volcanic rock walls five hundred feet high. The rivers at the bottom are the Crooked River and the Deschutes. They are now lakes because there is a dam at Round Butte. Right now the water is a deep green from algae blooms, but it’s still pretty. Besides the campground and day use areas, there is also a resort and marina, with a little store and house made ice cream sandwiches that are touted as “the best on the planet.” We felt we had won the lottery.

We stopped first to dump tanks at the Crooked River campground, up on the bluffs above the canyon. Then we descended all the way down, went up and over the saddle between the two rivers, and set up in our full hookups camp host site. There was just enough service for me to blog, so Richard went out on his bike and explored. He sent back pictures of the store and ice cream sandwiches, but photos do not capture the size of those things.

After he returned, we had dinner and took a little walk around to the boat launch so I could decide whether I wanted to get a paddle in some time. The park feels like a mini national park. The roads are so nice, with gorgeous views the whole way. Things are well signed and there are ample facilities, especially for water sports. That is clearly the activity of choice and tons of people pull motor boats on trailers. There is really only one big hike, the Tam-a-lau Trail, which we decided to do the next day.

We kept scanning the weather apps for smoke status, but we lucked out the whole time we were there. It was a green light for doing the Tam-a-lau Trail, which is a six mile lollipop. One mile takes you five hundred feet to the top of the bluff, then you get to take in the views of both river valleys for five miles. We saw Bald Eagles soaring overhead and could make out Mt. Jefferson and the Three Sisters through only a little haze.

Having earned hiking calories, my motivation turned to verifying the “best on the planet” ice cream sandwich claim. We biked five miles to the resort. What a great road to ride! By the time we arrived, all of the chocolate chip cookie sandwiches were gone, so we got a sugar cookie version. I will say, they are huge, and might win the prize for hugest on the planet. I found there to be too much vanilla ice cream to get my mouth around. The cookie was chewy and very good, but honestly, I’ll take an It’s It over these in the “best” category, especially if you can find mint. And guess what! The store also carries mint It’s Its! I knew what my plans for the next day would include.

My plans for the next day were to begin with a nice paddle. I drove over to the Upper Deschutes Day Use area, parked, got my boat out of the roof box, assembled it, put wheels on it, rolled it down to the launch, put on my lifejacket, took a pre-launch picture, and then discovered it was still leaking air. Like it would have sunk before I got very far at all. Oh man, that was frustrating and disappointing. I then had to put the wheels back on, haul it up to the car, disassemble it, put it back in the roof box, all without it having ever touched the water. I’m frustrated enough with it that I’m considering other boat options. But I still told LoseIt, my calorie tracking app, that I spent an hour paddling and deserved the exercise calories for it. I’m sure expended that many just in muttering.

Richard had gone to redo the Tam-a-lau Trail while I was supposed to be boating, so I waited for him at the day use area while I did internet things, like look at other boat options. When he got down, he was kind enough to agree to biking back to the store with me because I deserved a mint It’s It. On the way back, we checked out the one petroglyph in the park, and learned about The Island, which is a thin peninsula between the two rivers that has been designated off limits to people.

The evening was spent trying to figure out what to do next. We’ve been watching Lava Beds closely, and it seemed to have just barely dodged the smoke so far, maybe because it’s a little higher up. But then we saw that it was getting engulfed. If we were to go there, with no hookups for AC air filtering, it could be really bad. It was looking like we were going to have to just punch through and hope to come out of the smoke and land somewhere fun. We dumped tanks using our special host accommodations and went to bed only knowing that the next day was going to be a long one.

We really loved this park and would never have stayed here if not for the unexpected circumstances. Just goes to show you; when life zigs, you zag. And sometimes the zagging turns out better than your original plans. Also, it was fun to pretend to be camp hosts, especially ones with no official duties. We did have one person knock on our door and let us know the bathrooms were out of toilet paper.

Total miles from Deschutes: 114.1, 16.6 mpg. Site B45 (host site with full hookups). Very limited service for ATT and no service for Verizon unless you hike up the bluff. Wifi at the resort. Nice campground with showers, sink, nice bathrooms, kids playground. Boat launches from the Day Use areas. Dump up at campground on top of the bluff before descending into the canyon. Good dump there and potable water.