Looking for a sunny place to go camping this summer? You might want to check out The Cove Palisades State Park on Lake Billy Chinook. It’s a quick shot over the mountain to Madras, then you hang a right, and soon you will be sipping a cold one on the shores of a nice desert lake. The sky is usually blue out there even when we are getting dumped on in the Portland area.

Columnar basalt spires and cliffs surround you. Orioles and mourning doves fly around in the junipers and sage brush. Mule deer stay shaded in the rimrock during the day and then come down to have a cool drink and to munch some grass in the evenings. The elusive chukkar lives high up on the ridges and laughs at any fool who tries to get close enough to have a peek. Binoculars come in very handy here.

Three rivers (Crooked, Deschutes, Metolius) discharge into the lake and each canyon is fun to explore in a boat. It’s a Hells Canyon in miniature. Lake Billy Chinook has 500-800 foot canyon walls versus 3000+ in Hells Canyon.

My buddy towed his boat over, so we had two nice days of fishing. The lake is filled with smallmouth bass, trout, and kokanee salmon. We managed to catch and release a bunch of smallmouth bass this time. The kokanee were my preferred species, but they can be finicky and eluded us on this trip.

There are other area interests as well. If you are camping at Lake Billy Chinook, it’s a quick drive over to Smith Rock for some hiking or rock climbing. There’s even a nice Museum in Warm Springs as you drive out there. The Black Bear Diner in Madras is a good place to stop for a truck driver special. Bend and Redmond are close as well.

If you are looking for a nice desert adventure, you may want to check it out sometime. I’d be interested in hearing from anyone who has rented a houseboat on Lake Billy Chinook. I’m thinking about doing it next summer, perhaps in May before the jet skiers show up en masse.