Idaho Panhandle National Forests
National Forest · Coeur d'Alene, Idaho
More than two and a half million acres across the top of Idaho, run as one since 1973 from the old Kaniksu, Coeur d'Alene and St. Joe forests. It is wetter, greener and lower than the rest of Idaho - inland rainforest with western redcedar and hemlock - and it wraps Lake Pend Oreille, Priest Lake and Lake Coeur d'Alene along with fourteen hundred miles of hiking trail. It also carries the Route of the Hiawatha, a rail trail through the mile-and-two-thirds Taft Tunnel, and the ground where the 1910 Big Burn took three million acres in two days and changed how the United States fights fire.
3232 West Nursery Road, Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, 83815, United States
Open year round with no forest entrance station and no general fee. ⚠ THE ROUTE OF THE HIAWATHA IS A SEASONAL, TICKETED CONCESSION - roughly late May to late September depending on snow, with a trail pass and a separate shuttle ticket, and NO FEDERAL PASS COVERS IT. THE SUPERVISOR'S OFFICE AT COEUR D'ALENE keeps weekday hours, typically 8:00 to 4:30, closed on federal holidays; district offices at Bonners Ferry, Sandpoint, Priest River, Fernan, Smelterville, St. Maries and Avery keep their own. CAMPGROUNDS AT PRIEST LAKE AND PEND OREILLE ARE ON RECREATION.GOV AND BOOK MONTHS AHEAD for summer. A day-use fee or Northwest Forest Pass applies at some developed trailheads and boat launches. Free self-issue registration for the Salmo-Priest Wilderness. Higher roads are unploughed from November; the ski areas and groomed routes run instead. Fire restrictions are common from late July.
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