Travels in America: Idaho Biking Trails

We basically spent 3 days exploring Idaho on a bike.  The first day, as mentioned, was at Farragut State Park and we avoided Idaho State Parks following that night.  The next day we had picked up groceries and parked in Coeur d'Alene where there is a lovely bunch of trails, many of them relatively new.  There is the State Centennial Trail which travels through the city and then seems to follow the I-90 to the WA border.  We experienced a wee bit of this at the end of our vacation in Spokane, because the trail connects to the Spokane River Trail.  We chose to travel on the Coeur d'Alene Lake trail which took us close to the lake for a solid portion.  Then we went through the central part of the city and it could have been better marked, but it was really quite lovely.  There are not a lot of building cranes currently located in downtown Coeur d'Alene.  Rather than take the State Centennial Trail,  we chose to follow along the Spokane River and went through a couple of neighbourhoods that were new with large homes.  The fall colours were gorgeous on that day.  I'd definitely recommend this trail to others.

More than 10 years ago, we had experienced the Trail of the Coeur d'Alenes on 2 separate occasions out of Plummer, ID and out of Cataldo, ID, on the I-90.  This time, we parked at the town of Harrison and rode up to Rose Lake which we had reached from Cataldo 10 years ago.  It was a nice ride and the trail is in good shape - might be great to try it during spring migration.  One thing we did find was that we think they are working to "reclaim" some wetlands and so we did have to ride past a 10 km section of brush burning and equipment tearing up the area.  The total ride that we did was 30 km each way and most of it was very good.  A state highway is audible, but it wasn't that busy.  It was good to see how well used the trail is - we encountered more than 60 people on the trail that day - mid-week in October.   It's amazingly FLAT!  Highly recommended. 

Travels in America, 2024 Part 1

 IDAHO STATE PARKS

We left on a 2 weeks holiday to hike and bike in various areas of Idaho, Oregon and Washington states.  No specific destination was in mind but we knew of a couple of trails in Idaho that we wanted to visit and one in OR and in WA.  Basically, we followed our nose.  

The first night we stopped at Farragut State Park near Coeur d'Alene, ID.  Generally, we've liked the national and state parks throughout the US on previous visits.  We couldn't "register" for camping until after 3pm but we picked out a site and rode our bikes around.  There were lots of views of Lake Pend'Oreille and there were numerous roads and trails for biking.  Our bikes did not like the obstacles on  some of the trails, but there were plenty of options.  We stuck to the roads most of the time.  

When we registered for camping we were a bit shocked to discover that the price was $65USD.  In Idaho, if you are "non-resident", the price is doubled - a regular campsite is $32 for a resident, plus tax.  In Canadian money, this is close to $100 for a single night of camping?!  As a result, we did not visit more state parks in ID and I'd suggest that the prices are too high for Canadians to consider.  Fortunately, this did not occur in other states that we visited.  

The National Forests are good places for camping and we were a bit surprised to find out that the campsite we located called Beauty Creek had already closed by October 8th.  We parked at the entranceway and the bathrooms were still open (with toilet paper!) and it was quite a nice spot.  Of course, the Beauty Creek had completely dried up - this whole area was in great need of rain.  There was a pretty good hike up a hillside to some good views but I had no idea if I had enough time to actually "hike" it before dark.  I opted for one viewpoint.  The next morning we did do a lovely hike above Lake Coeur d'Alene near the campsite.  

Our third night of camping in ID took place at the trailhead on the Trail of the Coeur d'Alenes near Harrison, ID.  There were no signs stating no overnight parking and a bathroom was at the location we chose.  We observed our best sunset of the entire trip.  The 2 "free" nights rather made up for expensive camping in the state parks.