My usual disclaimer: so many Oregon State Parks are beautiful, with great campsites and wonderful hiking, but good luck staying in one: most are fully booked for every weekend in the summer by FEBRUARY. We really don’t like having to make camping plans months in advance, but if you want to camp in Oregon, that’s often what you have to do – there’s very little opportunities for last-minute camping plans.
We booked a site at Milo McIver State Park back in January for April so we could take Lucinda the dog and our homemade square drop camper out and about – it was a terrific trip. And we’ll do it again in June at Ainsworth State Park, which we also booked back in January. Lucy loves camping so much and we love taking her.
But not long after that camping trailer adventure, we did a spur-of-the-moment weekend motorcycle adventure, and couldn’t believe we got a great campsite at the more than half-empty Cove Palisades State Park! A friend invited us, and there turned out to be six of us: three couples, on four motorcycles (one was two-up) and a Can-Am. We have been in that part of the state many times, in Jefferson County in the heart of Oregon, but I had never been to the Deschutes and Crooked River canyons. I really hate riding over the pass on Mt. Hood and through the Warm Springs Reservation, because its usually packed with traffic, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected.
Once at the Cove Palisades, the roads into and along the canyons are paved, but can be challenging: after the second bridge across Lake Billy Chinook, you go up and there are two VERY sharp hairpin turns. I was so glad Stefan and I have the com system in our helmets and he could warn me about them, because I need to get mentally ready for hairpin turns. The rock formations throughout the canyon are incredible. The lake was named for Billy Chinook, a Native American of the Wasco tribe who traveled alongside American explorers John C. Frémont and Kit Carson in their expeditions of 1843 and 1844.
The campground is wonderful. There’s no privacy between sites – very few trees, given the landscape. But there are these massive boulders and it gives the landscape a Mars-like feeling. Nearby is a public petroglyph site, and if I hadn’t been so dead tired from the week before and in better shape and not wearing motorcycle boots, it would have been an easy hike there. And the campground for full hookups is separated from the campground for no hookups – I love that, because it puts us mostly with tent campers. The showers in the bathrooms are free, which I was so grateful for: I overheated twice on that weekend and needed cold showers.
Added bonus: it was our first opportunity ever to see the Northern Lights, and that was the perfect place to see them. I was so tired from lots of activities the previous week and I wasn’t sure I could make it, but I knew I would deeply regret it later if I didn’t. We set our alarms for 11:15 p.m. and I headed to the bathroom first. I walked out and, even with all the light from the bathroom, I looked up and could see light green streaks in the sky – AND I WAS NOW WIDE AWAKE! There they were! We hiked up just a few yards behind our campground and beheld the light show. It wasn’t as spectacular as the eclipse or seeing the comet or even seeing Saturn and Jupiter at once through our telescope, but it was fascinating. I didn’t know that the lights very slowly change color, and that the dominant colors would be green and pink. I was also surprised at how much better photos are of the show than actually seeing it.
Why was the campground not even half full? Because it was the first weekend it was open and school isn’t out yet and it was Mother’s Day weekend – and while mothers love to camp, they do not enjoy all the cooking and cleaning they end up doing while the husband and kids have a happy time gallivanting around. The state park ranger told us that the park would be fully packed starting the next weekend, when school was out. We were so content there that we stayed a second night, while everyone else left (I had booked the dog sitter for the full weekend).
We also took time to ride to a trailhead on Saturday and do a short hike along the Deschutes River leading to Steelhead Falls. It was beautiful, but ridiculously hot. I could never have done it if I hadn’t changed out of my motorcycle pants. I was still so tired, plus out of shape, wearing my motorcycle boots and without my hiking stick and in record-breaking heat, above 90 – I was every inch the fat woman hiking that I felt. The trail is tough: very steep at the start and very narrow at times, and it obviously, regularly collapses in places. The falls are beautiful, but usually VERY crowded with people. I’m so glad we went when we did; in fact, I wish we’d gone an hour earlier, because as we started walking back, there was an endless line of people pouring into the valley, including an asshole on a bicycle, and none seemed to know trail hiking etiquette (stop and make room for people walking down the trail in the opposite direction of you).
And while we’re on the negative, I’ll note the only downside at both state parks we’ve stayed in recently: camp hosts all over Oregon long ago stopped enforcing quiet hours. State Parks are particularly bad: there will be at least one site, if not many more, playing music and talking in full voice, and yelling, not just until midnight – usually well past it. The camp hosts disappear as night falls and don’t come through the site again until late morning. I later complain regularly to whatever agency manages whatever campground we’re staying in, but I know it won’t make a difference: too many people in the USA are armed, and camp hosts would be taking their lives into their hands by telling certain groups they need to pipe down. I can’t wear earplugs for more than three nights in a row (long story) – hoping I don’t face it more than two nights in a row.
The loud group next to us in Cove Palisades were particularly loud – and then had a huge fight that resulted in the entire group abandoning one of their party and moving several campsites away – sleeping in their cars rather than in the large tents she provided. At one point, one of the men said, “Why can’t you let me be the man and drive the car?” and I was two seconds from charging over and letting him know that a penis is not required to operate a vehicle, but I didn’t…
Eavesdropping is a hobby of mine. I love listening to other people’s conversations, so long as it’s not after bedtime. But I missed the best part of this exchange in a grocery store between a Mom and her 4 or so year old. I heard the start and Stefan heard the punch line. I find parents trying to reason with kids ridiculous:
Mom: Jack, you can’t have that. I’ve told you that it’s not good for you. You have to trust me when I tell you these things.
Jack: Waaaah. But I want this.
Mom: Jack, it’s got added sugar.
Jack: But I want added sugar!
Anyway, we packed up Sunday morning and I really did not want to go back to Madras. I find the town sad (SO many homeless addicts wandering the streets) and under-whelming. I checked online and found good reviews for Juniper Bar & Grill in tiny Culver, which we had ridden through on our way back from Steelhead Falls and that intrigued me. Off we went and WHAT A FIND! I had the best eggs benedict I have ever had and they gave me a carnation for Mother’s Day! I hope they got a huge flux of people later – they had a lot of carnations ready to go!
I’d say the ride home was uneventful, but it wasn’t: once in Portland, taking the ramp for US Highway 26, in thick, stop and go traffic, with no shoulder whatsoever, my motorcycle died. It was awful. And terrifying. No long trips until my motorcycle gets fully serviced.
We’d love to do more weekend motorcycle trips, but it’s not easy, not only because of how hard it is to find campsites, even rough camping, on weekends. We also have trouble finding dog sitters and I hate being away from my piano, guitar and dulcimer for too long.
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