Sandpoint & North Idaho Lakes Guide

Water Sports

With the one of the largest freshwater lake in the west, it is easy to imagine the possibilities for fun on the water in North Idaho. Only Flathead Lake in Montana and some man-made lakes are larger. However, Lake Pend Oreille is not the only water possibility in North Idaho. There are hundreds of lakes and ponds, some of which are impressive in their own rights. To the south are Hayden Lake, Lake Cocolalla, and Lake Coeur d’Alene, a body of water almost as large as Lake Pend Oreille. There is also every kind of stream and river. Rapid Lightning Creek fits its name, with roaring torrents of rushing water for much of the year. The Pack River and Clark Fork River both offer kayaking, and for the more tame, lake kayaking, sailing, and rowing can be had on the larger lakes. The Pend Oreille River is ideal for motor boating and water skiing. Wind surfing can be seen on many of these waterways, though it is not as popular here as on Lake Tahoe or the Columbia River.

During World War II over 300,000 sailors trained near Farragut State Park near Bayview on Lake Pend Oreille, and Navy submariners still train for submarine sonar at the naval station there.

Even scuba and snorkeling fans find a wonderful inland outlet for their sport. This is truly one of the nation’s best places for water sports. Below you will find several resources to satisfy whatever your boating or water needs may be.

Scroll Down for the story behind each lake

Short List of Lakes, Sloughs, and Bays

Links & Resources

North Idaho Lakes

Lake Cocolalla

Sandpoint lies on the shores of Lake Pend Oreille, one of the most beautiful lakes in North America. Lake Pend Oreille is so deep and quiet the U.S. Navy has a submarine research facility located here. There are few lakes that host the scenery that Lake Pend Oreille provides. The lakes protected coves make for great water skiing, wakeboarding as well as an overnight camping adventure. The prevailing winds from the southwest provide sailing enthusiasts many days of quality boating. There are numerous sailing regattas all summer long providing sailing as well as social enjoyment. Because of its size, waves can approach the size of ocean and sea waves, though, for the most part, Lake Pend Oreille is a calm body of water. Since winds are more calm than not, windsurfing isn’t seen as often as other great water/wind sports areas like the Columbia River. However, parasailing is growing in popularity.

What to do on the Water

Lake Pend Oreille in Idaho Lake Fishing

Lake Pend Oreille Water Sports

Take a cruise, go scuba diving, sailing, rowing, kayak, or even take a kayak tour. If kayaking is your thing, then you are in luck. With a lake over 65 miles long one can spend countless hours paddling along the lake. The many tributaries offer secluded paddling with a wide variety of wildlife to be found. For the whitewater enthusiasts there are numerous rivers and streams to get your heart pounding. The Moyie River, famous for its Class 5 rapids is only an hour away. The Selway and Lochsa are within easy driving distance and offer even the most seasoned kayak enthusiast a real test. The Pack River and Priest River also provide kayakers plenty of great water to play on.

Boating provides enough room to zoom. Fishing is world-class, and swimming in one of America’s cleanest bodies of water is heavenly. City Beach is in Sandpoint at the end of Bridge Street. There you will find wonderful sandy beaches. Lifeguards are provided in the swimming area, and you can play volleyball, tennis, launch your boat, play basketball, or have a picnic and grill on the barbecue pits provided.

If you prefer cruises you can take a Lake Cruise on the Shawnodese, with daily runs providing daily cruises, sunset cruising, dessert cruises, dinner cruises, island tours, boat and goat, eagle watching, and other special tours and cruises offered by Lake Pend Oreille Cruises. Private charters are offered also, featuring special occasion charters from April through October. They also have jet boat rentals and tours to Bernard Peak and on the Pend Oreille and Clark Fork Rivers. Check out www.lakependoreillecruises.com 208-255-LAKE (5253) or 888-726-3764.

When visiting Sandpoint, make it a point to rent a boat and discover why so many people have fallen in love with the area. If you're uncomfortable navigating on unknown waters, take a fishing charter or a scenic cruise. If you do decide to take a fishing charter, make sure you get plenty of rest prior to departure as this lake offers trophy rainbow trout that will challenge your skill as well as your endurance.

Lake Pend Oreille is a lake in North Idaho, with a surface area of 148 square miles. With 111 miles of coastline, it is 65 miles long, and 1,150 feet deep in some regions, making it the fifth deepest in the US. It is fed by the Clark Fork River and the Pack River, and drains via the Pend Oreille River. It is surrounded by national forests and several small towns. All but the southern tip of the lake is in Bonner County. The southern tip is in Kootenai County and is home to Farragut State Park, formerly the "Farragut Naval Training Station" during World War II.

The lake is home to many species of fish, including rainbow trout, lake trout, perch, crappie, bass, whitefish and kamloops. The forests consist of ponderosa pine, Douglas fir, poplar and western larch. Local animal species include whitetail deer, squirrels, black bears, grizzly bears, coyotes and bobcats, along with bald eagles, osprey, owls, hummingbirds, hawks, woodpeckers, ducks and the mountain bluebird.

History

Lake Pend Oreille was glacially formed during the ice age. It is also believed that the eastern side of the lake was in the path of the ancient Missoula Flood.

During World War II, the south end of Lake Pend Oreille was the second largest naval training ground in the world. Built as a direct result of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the training station is now Farragut State Park. The lake is still used by the Navy's Acoustic Reserach Detachment to test large-scale submarine prototypes: the significant depth gives acoustic properties similar to the open ocean.

Pend Oreille River Drainage

The Pend Oreille River drains about 24,200 square miles of land in western Montana and the Panhandle of northern Idaho. Most of the 2,133 square miles of the drainage within Idaho lie in Bonner County. Major tributaries of the Pend Oreille River include the Clark Fork, Flathead, Bitterroot, Blackfoot, and St. Regis rivers in Montana and the Priest and Pack rivers and Lightning Creek in Idaho.

Pend Oreille Lake is the largest natural lake in Idaho covering 85,960 surface acres with a shoreline length of 111 miles. The lake basin is deep and steep-sided with a maximum depth of 1,152 feet and mean depth of 538 feet. The combined surface area of Pend Oreille Lake and the backwaters of Albeni Falls Dam, located on the Pend Oreille River 23 miles downstream of the lake, is 94,720 acres.

Priest and Upper Priest lakes are glacial lakes connected by a shallow winding channel. Priest Lake has a surface area of about 23,360 acres with a maximum depth of 369 feet and mean depth of 123 feet. Upper Priest Lake is accessible only by boat or foot trail, covers about 1,400 surface acres, and has a maximum 100-foot depth. Spirit Lake has a surface area of 1,477 acres and a maximum depth of about 90 feet.

Westslope cutthroat trout, pygmy whitefish, mountain whitefish, and bull trout are the only salmonids native to the Pend Oreille drainage in Idaho.

Introduction of exotics has played both a positive and negative role in shaping the fisheries of the Pend Oreille drainage. Lake Superior whitefish were introduced to Pend Oreille in 1889. Eastern brook trout were widely distributed in the early 1900s and were successful in outcompeting and eventually replacing native cutthroat in some watersheds. Lake trout were introduced into Priest and Pend Oreille lakes in the 1920s.

During the 1930s, kokanee salmon became established in Pend Oreille Lake by moving naturally into the system from Flathead Lake in Montana in the early 1900s. Kokanee salmon were transplanted from Pend Oreille Lake to Spirit Lake in 1937 and Priest Lake in the 1940s. Kokanee established themselves quickly in each of these lake systems, displacing native mountain whitefish in the open water habitat.

The introduction of channel catfish, tiger muskie, and bluegill sunfish has diversified the warmwater fishery in several lakes. Other game fish in the Pend Oreille drainage include brook trout, brown trout, largemouth and smallmouth bass, northern pike, tiger muskie, yellow perch, black crappie, pumpkinseed, bluegill, bullhead, and channel catfish.

Macarthur Lake

Priest Lake

The first white settlers arrived in the early 1800s. These early settlers were mainly fur trappers who quickly established trade with the native Kalispel Tribe. Jesuit Priests would eventually settle the lake in the 1840s and establish a base camp at Kalispell Bay. One of these priests, Father Pierre-Jean DeSmet, a native Belgian who had escaped from European persecution and became the most trusted of the white men among the Western Native Americans, named the lake Roothaan Lake for one of his superiors in Rome. The name would not stick though and in 1865 Captain John Mullan, a U.S. Army Captain who was traveling through the area under orders to build the "Mullan Trail" from Walla Walla, Washington to Fort Benton, Montana after the discovery of silver in the central Idaho mountains along what today is the route of Interstate 90, would re-name the lake Kaniksu. Kaniksu is believed to be the native word for “black robe” and because of the Jesuit presence the lake was later named Priest Lake.

Tourism

Today the lake's biggest draw is tourism. There are several large private resorts on the lake including Kaniksu Resort, Hills Resort, and Elkins Resort. Popular camp grounds include Indian Creek, Lionhead, Beaver Creek, and Luby Bay, which are all located in and run by the Idaho Panhandle National Forest Service. Several hiking trails circle the lake, also connecting to the Upper Priest Lake. In the winter time the larger resorts cater to cross country skiing, snowshoeing, and snowmobiling. There is also a hotel and marina located at the lake's largest town, Coolin. The Priest Lake Public Library, located at the corner of Luby Bay Road and Highway 57, is open year-round. Housed in the historic Lamb Creek School, the library has wireless internet access and an extensive local history collection. More information about the community is available through the Priest Lake Chamber of Commerce.

Other Idaho Lakes, Rivers & Reservoirs

The Snake River system contains many canyons along its expanses across Idaho. The Snake runs through a canyon fifty miles long as it enters Idaho from Wyoming. Several rivers, tributaries, flow into the Snake and enter through their own canyons. Blue Lakes Canyon is on the Snake River five miles below Shoshone Falls near the city of Twin Falls. Blue Lakes Canyon contains farmland and a country club along the Snake River almost 500 feet straight down from the desert floor. The Hagerman Valley is another interesting segment of the winding Snake River containing a grand Canyon. This valley is a wide canyon having a high, steep north wall that issues beautiful flowing springs, Thousand Springs. Here, millions of gallons of water gush from the rocky canyon wall cascading into the Snake River. Hydrologists infer that the water source is the Big Lost Sinks where the Big and Little Lost River’s disappear into the lava beds near Arco about 150 miles northeast of Hagerman Valley.

The most well known part of the Snake River Canyon, however, is between Idaho and Oregon. It is Hells Canyon, the Grand Canyon of the Snake, or Seven Devils Canyon. It is 7,900 feet from the bottom of the canyon to the top of Devil Peak. This makes it the deepest gorge in North America. It is about 2,250 feet deeper than the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River in Arizona.

In addition to deep canyon gorges the Snake also has several important waterfalls as a result of sudden regional changes in elevation. These include the spectacular Shoshone Falls which boasts, 212 feet of relief, 52 feet more than Niagara. Other waterfalls in the state include Big Fiddler Creek which has one of the highest falls in Idaho - 600 feet high. It is on the South Fork of the Boise River above Arrow Rock Dam. Moyie Falls is noted for its stone formations which make the water seem to be full of colored glass crystals. It is on the Moyie River near Bonners Ferry. Several towns in Idaho are named after waterfalls: American Falls, Idaho Falls, Post Falls, and Twin Falls.

The untamed and imposing Salmon River - "River of No Return" - winds 425 miles through the mountains of central Idaho, its canyon gorge deeper than the Grand Canyon of the Colorado. It flows through the Sawtooth Wilderness Area and finally joins the Snake about fifty miles south of Lewiston. A spawning stream for pacific salmon, it is one of the longest and most rugged rivers lying wholly within one state.

The Clearwater River, of northern Idaho, is another major river system lying entirely within Idaho’s boundaries. Bitterroot mountain streams feed the Clearwater. The Clearwater was used as a passageway by explorers and trappers, and later by miners and loggers because it was much more tame than its counterpart the Salmon River.

Far to the south is the Bear River, 300 miles long, which originates in Utah's Uinta Mountains, winds back and forth north to Wyoming, back to Utah, back to Wyoming, and then enters Idaho. It moves north (staying south of the tributaries of the Snake) and then back southwest, to where it enters Utah and deposits its water in the Great Salt Lake. Early trappers found beaver along the Bear. The Oregon and California trails entered Idaho with the Bear River and followed it for a considerable distance.

Major rivers in northern Idaho include the Kootenai and Pend Oreille, which flow into the Columbia; the Clark Fork, which flows into Lake Pend Oreille; the Saint Maries, the Saint Joe (St. Joe), and the Coeur d'Alene, which flow into Lake Coeur d'Alene; and the Spokane River which carries the waters of Coeur d'Alene Lake to the Columbia.

The Boise, Payette and Weiser flow into the Snake in southwestern Idaho as it forms the Oregon border, and there are many shorter tributaries of the Snake in southern Idaho.

Idaho has more than 2,000 lakes with names, and thousands of others without names. Some Idaho lakes can't be found on any map! Two of Idaho's northern lakes are said to be among the most beautiful in the world. Lake Coeur d'Alene and Lake Pend Oreille (the largest in the state with a surface area of 180 square miles). Both are large beautiful lakes in Bonner, Kootenai, and Benewah counties. Lake Coeur d'Alene is a popular resort area.

Farther north of Lake Pend Oreille is Priest Lake, early a heavily used trapper area. A few miles south of Pend Oreille is Hayden Lake. Surrounded by forested mountains, all of these lakes are in spectacular settings.

Payette Lake in central Idaho north of Boise is also a significant summer recreation destination. Farther east, in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area, Redfish, Stanley, and Alturas lakes fulfill the same role.

In eastern Idaho, only fifteen miles from Yellowstone, is Henry's Lake, a favorite trapper hangout and trout fishing lake. Farther south is turquoise Bear Lake, half in Idaho and half in Utah.

Many of Idaho's lakes are actually reservoirs, formed behind the numerous dams on the state's waterways. Dams are constructed to store water for irrigation, to generate hydroelectric power, and to keep flood water from destroying farms and cities. Idaho's rivers have such dams as the Anderson Ranch, Arrow Rock, Lucky Peak, Black Canyon, Dworshak, and many others.

Idaho’s five major cities are located on the Snake or its tributaries. A dozen or more dams were constructed along its course alone to provide affordable irrigation water and hydroelectric power for thousands of farms, homes, and most of Idaho's industries (two-thirds of the population of Idaho live in the fertile Snake River Valley). The Snake River has dams and reservoirs at Palisades, near the Wyoming line, American Falls, Minidoka, Salmon Falls, Brownlee, Oxbow, and Hells Canyon.

Snake River water that is captured in reservoirs or flows on to the ocean comes, not from rainfall, but from the snow that accumulates on the vast peaks of Idaho's mountains. Shifting sand dunes near St. Anthony, Bruneau, and Weiser reveals the fragile environment of the semiarid Snake River Plain.