Priest Lake Road Trip, Day Two, Kayaking on the big lake, Kalispell and Bartoo Islands.

After a full day of kayaking and hiking out of the Lion Head unit of Priest Lake State Park I called it an evening and got ready of the next day. I got up at about 5:00 AM, packed up my camp as quietly as possible so as to not disturb my camping neighbors and headed to the opposite side of the lake.

My destination was the Kalispell Bay boat ramp an hour and a half around the lake. On the way I made a quick stop at the public docks in the town of Coolin to snap a couple of photos.

In the distance I could see my goals for todays paddle. Kalispell Island is on the left, tiny Papoose Island in the middle and Bartoo Island on the right. That’s a lot of open water to cross. Lower Priest Lake is over nineteen miles long and over three hundred feet deep.

The Lake is so large, it took me almost an hour and a half to drive from Lion Head on the north end to Kalispell Bay around the bottom of the lake and back up the other side on the southwest shore. This was the view of my islands from the boat ramp. I launched about 7:00 AM and was the only one doing so at that hour. It would get a lot busier later.

I aimed for the far south point of Kalispell Island with the glare of the rising sun in my face. This point is off limits to boat campers and open for day use only, so I landed and took a brief break.

From here I had a nice view across the water to Papoose and Bartoo Islands. Kalispell is the more accessible and poplar of the islands for camping. You can see the water clarity here.

Priest Lake is called North Idaho’s crown jewel for a reason. It is the most remote of the big lakes in the panhandle and a water sports destination for the entire region.

This was the first of my three landing spots for the day. Boat camping on Kalispell and Bartoo Islands is a very popular pastime. If I had a boat and the time in my younger days I would have loved to have brought the family here.

On the way to Bartoo Island I passed by tiny Papoose Island. This little piece of land is closed to all public use. There’s not much on it anyway, it’s just a halfway point in the middle of a lot of open water on the way to Bartoo Island.

Off of Papoose Island there are some dangerous submerged rocks that are marked by a buoy warning boaters of the hazard. It would suck to hit one of these while speeding through an otherwise deep channel.

I paddled around the south end of Bartoo Island exploring the scenery which varied from rocky bluffs to sand beached and even marshland. A lot of the camp sites were full.

I almost expected to see a moose, but the island usually has a lot of folks on it.

Some of the rock formations on Bartoo Island must be two hundred feet above the shore.

This was my second landing place on Bartoo Island with Papoose and Kalispell Islands in the background. This particular campsite was unoccupied. Unlike a lot of lakes in North Idaho, Priest Lake is known for its clean sandy beaches.

Bartoo Island has it’s share of hazardous off shore rocks as well. Luckily my kayak only needs about six inches of water.

So I paddled back across the straight by Papoose Island and aimed for the center of the south shore of Kalispell Island when I came across about the most beautiful cove you could imagine.

There were three camp sites on this cove and I was shocked to find all of them unoccupied but all had reserved signs on them. I had the place to myself. It was the perfect place for one last swim in the lake.

There were amazing headlands on both sides of the cove. From the the west side I had a very nice view of the islands I had recently visited or kayaked around.

The headland on the east side of the cove had tall rock bluffs and a view of these amazing camp sites.

I wondered why these of all the sites on the island were empty. I ran into a volunteer worker for the campground and he explained that entitled folks with money to burn book the three sites all summer in two week blocks using different names to continue the reservation charade so they can come out anytime the weather is nice and it’s convenient. If I wanted to camp that would suck. For me as a day user it was awfully nice to have the place to myself.

So I finally had to head back to the boat ramp by circling the island. It’s bigger than it looks at first. I got to watch this bird do it’s thing hammering at the dead wood for a few minutes.

By the time I got to the boat ramp four hours later the place had turned in to a zoo. All the parking was gone and it seemed like a hundred people were just milling around waiting for their rides to the islands. Early bird gets the worm. On my way back I made one last stop at the bridge over the Priest River not too far from the outlet to the lake to take one last photo. Apparently this river is very popular with rafters and tubers in the summer. During melt off it’s a class five challenge for the real white water enthusiast.

The drive home took me only an hour and a half as I left from the southern end of the lake instead of Lion Head at the north end. On the way home it hit one hundred and three degrees Fahrenheit. That’s about 39 Celsius for my foreign exchange students. Glad I was off the water before noon.