Today I took an hour and a half drive to the far east end of Idaho’s largest lake to kayak the Clark Fork Delta about twenty miles from Sandpoint.
Lake Pend Oreille is Idaho’s private little ocean. The lake is amazing. It is the fifth deepest lake in the United States at well over one thousand feet deep, is over thirty miles long from end to end and has it’s own small archipelago islands as you can see in the photograph. Two river deltas enter the lake, one of which is the largest in the inland western U.S. Over half of the shore line of this massive lake is publicly owned.
Today I accessed the Clark Fork Delta, the larger of the two, from the Clark Fork Drift Yard site. Idaho manages the recreational end of it and the Army Corps of Engineers owns and uses the site to maintain structures related to navigation and protecting the delta itself from erosion.
This basic boat ramp with primitive camping is right off of State Road 200 and a couple of miles before you get to the town of Clark Fork. There are no fee’s for use. It is located right where the main channel of the river enters the lake.
A short paddle across the bay leads to a narrow opening. The shore line was “armored” with boulders to mitigate erosion. The summer pool level Lake Pend Oreille was raised about ten feet by the construction of Albeni Falls Dam twenty miles downstream causing significant adverse effects to this delta as well as the Pack River Delta. Idaho and the U.S. Government have spent a lot of resources trying to limit the damage with some positive results.
The delta consists of a mixture of marshlands, wooded areas and open water, There are over a dozen distinct large islands and many smaller ones as well as four major channels and several more small creeks that connect them. It takes a little effort to get the lay of the land.
The northern most channel is the largest and is really open to the wind, so I paddled a little way south and found this much narrower creek that parallels it almost to the beginning of the delta. It was a beautiful trip upstream.
You couldn’t have asked for better scenery. I passed not a single other boat on this stretch.
Here is a view of the Idaho part of the Cabinet Mountains including the highest peak on our side of the state line, Scotchman Peak. I’ve been to the top twice and hope to make it one more time. It is one of the most difficult hikes in the area.
Towards the end of this channel, there were a few vacation cabins accessible only by boat. Soon my creek rejoined the main north channel and I jogged downstream to catch another small creek to get further upstream.
Just before this creek rejoined the main stream at the top of the delta it shoaled out on a rocky bar. I had to dismount and walk my kayak the last hundred feet back to deep water.
Now I was upstream of all of the braided channels so I turned around and let the current carry me to the third branch. A couple of private bridges connected to these islands to provide access to private land owners.
This was the second to two bridges. The southern main stream was much smaller than the northern one.
Off of the channel there were many small side channels some of which dead ended in the middle of one or another of the islands. They were still fun to explore though.
The southern main channel ended up going next to the mountains making for dramatic scenery. I saw a couple of bald eagles at this point.
Soon I came across the Johnson Creek Access Area. Johnson Creek looked like it might be worth exploring but it was barricaded by a low bridge with no obvious way around or through it.
Now I was getting close to the lake again. A side channel veered off to the left so I took it.
This lead me to the most southerly of the four major outlets to the lake and another public access point, this time only for boaters. It was a nice place to take a break before crossing the delta to get back the the Driftwood Access.
It is a big lake. This is looking southwest towards the Green Monarch Ridge. Twenty more miles or so to the south is where I kayaked to Lakeview and back earlier this summer The water clarity is pretty impressive.
So I headed north towards my starting point across a rather large bay near the mouth of the delta. Much of the shore of the island I was heading towards was “armored” as it protected the rest of the delta from the deep open waters of the lake.
I did get to see three more bald eagles on the way and this time got a photograph. The third one was a juvenile and lower in the tree. He’s hard to see.
I ended up paddling almost five hours, my longest trip of the season so far. It was nice to appreciate the beauty along the way.
I saw many Great Blue Herons but had the darndest time catching them on camera. This one finally stayed still long enough.
Here is one of the four major outlets to the lake from inside the delta. Near the lake, the channels open up in to bays and you have to cross some pretty big stretches of open water.
It was an awesome trip and only my second time paddling the delta. I would love to do it again. You can if you try get lost in the little channels that lead into hidden wetlands. If only I had seen a moose it would have been perfect.
I do want to check out the smaller delta on the lake also. The Pack River Delta has been the subject of a major restoration effort recently. North Idaho has some epic landscape for those of us that like to push our limits. After seventy-seven miles of bike riding on some of my favorite trails over the weekend, a nice peaceful kayak trip was just what the doctor ordered.
