From western Montana to the Idaho panhandle

July 2021

Kootenai Falls area near Troy, MT

After leaving Glacier National Park, we traveled several hours to far-western Montana, and spent a few nights in Troy. It is beautiful country, here. We went to Kootenai Falls (pronounced Koot-nee), and were surprised by the size of it. It looks like a succession of terraces. This photo below doesn’t even show the whole thing. I didn’t have a tripod with me or the necessary neutral density filter to do it justice. A cloudy day would have been best, but we hadn’t had any cloudy days in weeks except for one morning at Glacier Natl. Park. Rain has been very scarce out West this summer, and it’s been unusually hot. It was about 100 degrees when we arrived at our campground in Troy.

We spoke to a long-time resident of the area, who said that not only was it very hot and dry this summer, but last winter they had much less snow compared to normal. We asked him what normal winter temps were, and he said, “ Not too bad, usually around 0, but occasionally down to 30 (F) below.” Not too bad, huh?

The drought became very obvious to us when we were alerted to a forest fire that had ignited on the ridge of the mountain across the road from our campground. It was about 50-80 acres in size. There was a river next to the road that also separated us from the fire. Crews were immediately taken off other fires in order to fight this one, as it was closer to the town. We watched helicopters lower big buckets into the river to fill with water and then fly over the ridge to dump the water on the fire, over and over. Then we saw small planes spread fire retardant over it. It was impressive to watch. We were not in danger, but Craig hitched the car to the RV just in case we got a knock on our door in the middle of the night telling us to evacuate.

While we were in the area, we visited Ross Creek Cedars Scenic Area. This is a grove of huge western red cedars hundreds of years old, some of which are 8 feet in diameter. It was a beautiful, easy trail.

From Troy, we continued west to Lake Pend Oreille (pronounced Pond-er-ay). This lake is the largest in Idaho and one of the deepest in the U.S. We stayed in the little town of Hope, one of the few towns right on the water. The road from Hope to Sandpoint follows the shoreline part of the way, and twice I saw bald eagles flying overhead. Sandpoint is a cute little town with lots of shops and restaurants. The Cedar Creek Bridge Public Market was a fun indoor shopping area built on a bridge.

There are more shops on the left side of the walkway that can’t be seen in this photo.

On the southern tip of Lake Pend Orielle is Farragut State Park. During WWII, this area was the site of the world’s second largest naval training station, and the Navy would test submarines here because the lake is so deep. The Navy still does acoustic research here. Farragut State Park has a variety of activities, including a museum. We saw a small, popular swimming area, too.

Lake Pend Orielle from Farragut State Park (Phone camera did something funky with the sky.)

Then we travelled south to Coeur d’Alene, ID. This was our favorite town we’ve seen so far. The downtown was right on the lake, and had beautiful, shady parks along the shore. One big park was right next to a swimming beach and a little museum about the history of the Idaho panhandle. Another park had a trail around Tubbs Hill, which was an easy trail that had excellent views of the lake, and where we saw nesting ospreys.

While we were in Coeur d’Alene, we were so happy to meet up with dear friends from St. Louis, who were visiting the area at the same time we were. It was great to catch up. We do miss all our friends from back east!

Onwards to Washington for the next month!