Launching Soon · A Field Guide

Where the High Desert Opens Up

A new dispatch from Madras, Oregon — the lake, the basin, and the wide horizon between the Cascades and the Ochocos.

Photo: Jonathan Simcoe / Unsplash
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A Jefferson County Dispatch

Start at the Cove.

Three rivers fold into one canyon below Round Butte. The basalt walls fall away. The water turns the kind of blue that doesn't quite look real until you're standing over it.

Madras is the town the road bends around — the high-desert seat of Jefferson County, the place a million people drove to in 2017 to stand in the path of totality, and the gateway to Lake Billy Chinook, the Cove Palisades, and a working agricultural valley most travelers never slow down for.

We're building a field guide to all of it. Sign up below and we'll send the first dispatch the week we launch.

Brown rock formation beside water — the kind of canyon walls that hold Lake Billy Chinook
i.

The Cove

Lake Billy Chinook, the Crooked, Deschutes, and Metolius. Houseboats, paddleboards, and walls of basalt — fifteen miles from Main Street.

Photo: Cristofer Maximilian / Unsplash

A rider on a horse crossing a grassy high-desert hill
ii.

The Basin

A working agricultural valley of seed crops, mint, and carrot — bordered by the Cascades to the west and the Ochocos to the east.

Photo: Eric Muhr / Unsplash

A total solar eclipse — the moment Madras became famous in 2017
iii.

The Sky

The 2017 eclipse made it famous; the dark skies and the 300+ sunny days a year are why people stay.

Photo: Bryan Goff / Unsplash

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