Because we live in Seattle, where the winters are gray and wet, we wanted to find some sun. On our Northwest Oregon vacation, the weather was just ok, but we still didn't get enough sun, so we decided to try on a second summer trip to get even better weather. As a result, we headed to the other east side of the Cascades, and drove to the Idaho Panhandle. While our Oregon vacation could be considered a trip of waterfalls, Northern Idaho can be considered a land of lakes. The big three are:
- Coeur d'Alene Lake (Voted by National Geographic as one of the 10 most beautiful lakes in the world.)
- Lake Pend Oreille (Deep enough that the US Navy performs underwater submarine research there.)
- Priest Lake (and Upper Priest Lake, which is only 13 miles from the Canadian border.)
This was a little bit different of a vacation from most, as we did comparably little hiking (only seven miles in three hikes.) We did do plenty of scenic driving, putting over 500 miles on the car, which is significant, considering that the panhandle is less than 50 miles wide. The two main activities for this trip were boating on Priest Lake and visiting Silverwood Theme Park.
By the way, we did find the sun that we desired. Skies were blue and sunny, with highs in the mid 70s to low 80s. It was exactly what we were looking for!
Map Courtesy of GPS Visualizer
Hiking
We only hiked 7 miles on this trip. The details for each hike are shown below. Mineral Ridge afforded us some great views of Coeur d'Alene Lake, while Moose Lake was a very quiet trip off the beaten path to a remote alpine lake. We only passed 2 groups hiking back there in the 2.5 hours we spent back on the trail, including a nice picnic at the lake.
| Hike | Distance (miles) | Elevation (ft) |
| Mineral Ridge | 2.7 | 700 |
| Moose Lake | 3.3 | 550 |
| Deep Creek | 1.0 | 0 |
| TOTAL | 7.0 | 1250 |
Boating
Of the three lakes we could've spent time on, we were glad to choose Priest Lake. It was a quieter alternative, that gave us a chance to boat two lakes for the price of one! Upper Priest Lake is a remote lake with no vehicular access. You only get there by boat or foot. A 2.5 mile thoroughfare (part of the Priest River) connects it with Priest Lake, and it was an beautiful and leisurely trip too. We spent about 8 hours on the lake cruising, tubing, and swimming a total of 67 miles.
Silverwood Theme Park
Silverwood is the only major theme park in the Pacific Northwest, and since the kids haven't been to a theme park since our Disneyland vacation back in 2005, we figured they had been deprived long enough, and that it was time to give them a chance to experience it again. While Raymond didn't take much to roller coasters (he hated riding the corkscrew, and got a terrible headache afterwards), Amelia loved them, and so she made her mother and I go on several, including the 4.5 G-force Aftershock, one of five Giant Inverted Boomerangs in the world. Along with Nick Norton's Mysterium magic show and a nice lunch at Lindy's restaurant, here is a list of rides we took in while at Silverwood and the companion Boulder Beach water park:
- Thrill Rides
- Fun-for-all Rides
- Water Park
Favorites
Here's what each family member said was their absolute favorite activity of the trip:
| Raymond: | Boating on Priest Lake |
| Amelia: | Boating on Priest Lake |
| Suzanne: | Moose Lake |
| Mike: | Lunch Peak Lookout |
Photos
We took over 180 pictures of our trip to Idaho. You can take a look at our online photo album here.
GPS
Here is a link to our .gpx file that has all of our hiking, driving, and boating details.
