North Fork of the Coeur d’Alene River Road Trip Day One.

I drove over Fourth of July Pass to explore the North Fork of the Coeur d’Alene River. My primary goal was to combine a couple of bike rides on the public roadways that follow the river with maybe a short hike or two and an overnight stay at one of the National Forest Service campgrounds along the way. On the way I stopped at the Fernan Ranger Station in Coeur d’Alene right off I-90 to pick up maps. I ended up buying my lifetime America the Beautiful pass as well. Turns out you get fifty percent off on Forest Service campgrounds too. It should more than pay for itself this year.

My first stop was near the intersection of Forest Road 209 (the Bumblebee Cutoff) and Old River Road near Kingston. I parked in a large parking area that is usually full on summer weekends as it’s used by those floating the river, a very popular past time on this stretch of water. This morning the lot was empty.

I biked a fourteen mile stretch of the road, out and back. Old River Road is across the river from Forest Road 9, which is the main route used to access all of the recreational opportunities in the region, therefore it gets much less traffic.

The first part of the road goes through a rural area and the first ten miles are paved, well kind of. There are a lot of pot holes and patch jobs on the road. I pedaled pass a couple of cattle ranches along the way and lots of private RV spots on the river. Most of the riverside property is flood plain and can only be used for recreational lots.

I rode past some pretty cool abandoned builds along the way and enjoyed a surprise appearance from the wild kingdom.

Turns out there’s a herd of elk that live in the area and they put on a show. While I was taking these photos several motorist stopped to admire them as well.

The elk didn’t seem to be too concerned with folks staying in their automobiles, but a man on a bicycle was another story altogether. They seemed much more concerned about me. I guess they’re used to cars and don’t have any idea what’s inside of them.

After a few miles, the scenery changed to more woods and cliffs than fields and cabins. They’re some pretty dramatic rock formations along this stretch.

The almost continuous views of the river are very beautiful with a different perspective around every bend.

Traffic on this road is very light and for the most part low speed. The road on this side of the river is mostly used by locals. I encountered one other cyclist. Lots of folks parked in pull outs along the road to try their luck at fly fishing and I did see a couple of drift boats floating the river.

After ten miles, the road turns in to a gravel road for a four mile stretch. Even though it is one of the best maintained gravel roads I’ve ever ridden a bike on, you still need to watch out for larger rocks. I rode my hybrid with skinnier tires and had no problems.

About half way through the unpaved section I came across this oopsy. As the son of a friend of mine once said, “it’s okay dad, we all make mistakes”. Hopefully they got help and got their car unstuck without dropping it into the river later that day.

Right next to the road there were a couple of the largest Western Red Cedars I’ve ever seen. The first was along the paved section at the entrance to a drive way. This monster was along the wilder unpaved section.

Here’s my bike next to it for perspective. I wonder how these giants managed to avoid getting cut or burned down all these years. They’re easily accessible. Now that they’re this large they are probably too big to be harvested since all of the lumber mills have retooled over the decades to process much smaller logs. I hope they stay here a long time to be appreciated by future generations.

I didn’t know what to expect out of this ride other than knowing it followed the river and it seemed ridable based on the traffic I saw. The whole ride was a pleasant experience.

The final mile of the road before it ends on heavily traveled Forest Road 9 is paved. This section seemed to be a popular spot for the locals to swim and was my place to turn around and enjoy the scenery from a new direction.

On the way back I stopped at the other giant cedar and posed my bike next to it also. It was hard to say which was bigger.

I rode through the farm area again and again saw one of the elk. Twenty eight miles and almost three hours later I was back at my trailhead.

I imagine that on summer weekends even this road across the river from the “busy” one gets enough traffic to make cycling it more of a challenge, but on weekdays and on the shoulder season when it’s too cool to float the river, I would give this ride two thumbs up. It felt like I found another bike trail with the low traffic, awesome scenery and ridable surfaces.

Now it was time to load the bike up and find a campsite. I headed to the Kit Price campground about twelve miles north of Pritchard. It’s the first of three formal campgrounds heading north towards the end of the paved road.

I selected and paid for my site and thanks to the America the Beautiful Pass it was half price. I got one that backed up to the river and this view. Before I set up camp I had just enough time for a side trip.

It had been well over a decade since I visited Shadow and Fern Falls. These waterfalls are a four and a half mile drive up a very challenging forest road gets you to a small parking area. A very short hike and you’re at Fern Falls, the smaller of the two.

Another short hike up a gentle switchback brings you to Shadow Falls with it’s twenty five foot drop. The falls are small but very scenic. The drive not so much. The road was in terrible shape. Recent gully washers created as you would expect, gully’s in the road bed and one of the mudholes was as deep as my running boards. My other rig is a Subaru which I highly recommend, usually. I’m glad I brought the truck this time. I don’t think the Forester would have made it. It doesn’t have the clearance.

A closer view of Shadow Falls. Since I spent the effort to get there, I wanted to enjoy the view for a bit. At least I knew how far I had to travel to get back down to get back to the pavement and I did get to test out the 4 wheel drive on my truck.

Now it was time to set up camp while enjoying the sunset. I spent a little time planning the next days adventure before I called it an evening.

I was a successful day. I did find a worthy bike ride for the future as I’m starting to get redundant with my rides on the local paved bike trails and now that I’ve seen Shadow and Fern Falls again, I think I’m good. I was looking forward to what tomorrow had in store.