The Idaho Panhandle

We are currently in our third week at Glacier National National Park in northwest Montana. On our way from the N. Cascades, we broke up the travel with a stop in Idaho’s panhandle.

First, we stayed at the Kootenai (KOO-tun-ee) County Fairgrounds on Saturday night so that we could check out the town of Coeur d’Alene (kore-duh-LANE) that afternoon. We didn’t know much about it other than the town is located on a pretty lake and that we’ve seen other tourists wearing CdA t-shirts in our travels.

We like staying at fairgrounds when they’re available because they are typically FHU for a much better price than nearby RV Parks. Plus, they normally have events going on that involve horses that you can watch from your site.

CdA turned out to be unlike anywhere we’ve been. It is basically a resort/party town. There is one resort on the lake that owns the marina, shops, several area restaurants, and a golf course with the world’s only floating green.

And everyone was day drinking. Most of the people renting boats were drinking. Most of the people at the lakeside park/beach had their BYOB or one of those party bowls with 5 straws. Most of the downtown area businesses were bars and the sidewalk tables were filled with people having cocktails.

The amazing thing about all this was it was very clean. You would expect with so much alcohol, it would smell like the French Quarter, but no, just the scent of fresh mountain air!

For the workweek, we moved up to the Log Inn RV Park in Bonner’s Ferry, Idaho. Bonner’s Ferry is a small town near the Canadian border that gets most of its visitors from those driving (or biking) the International Selkirk Loop, a 280-mile scenic byway that circles the Selkirk Mountains of North Idaho/Washington and southern British Columbia. It put us close to US Route 2 which is how we wanted to drive into Montana.

We spent most of our spare time in the afternoons washing our rig and gear and doing regular camper maintenance (repacked the bearings, lubed all the rubber seals, caulked around the windows, etc). We had a large site and the RV Park didn’t complain about all our projects.

On Friday afternoon we went to do a short hike to see Copper Falls in the Idaho Panhandle National Forest. On the way home, we stopped to get our first taste of huckleberry ice cream. North Idaho and Montana are obsessed with wild huckleberry and we are anxiously waiting for them to ripen because there are bushes all along the trails that we have been on lately!

On Saturday, we went to do an amazing hike recommended by some locals we met. The Roman Nose Lakes trailhead was only 30 miles east of Bonner’s Ferry in the Selkirks but took us 1.5 hours to get to on a Forest Rd.

The parking area was next to a lake and then the hike visited two additional lakes.

That’s all to this short post on our short time in Idaho. It’s definitely a state with a lot to offer those who like mountain scenery and hiking. The Sawtooths in southern Idaho are on our list of places to visit so we look forward to a more thorough visit.

Next up is Glacier National Park!