Sandpoint
With about 7,500 souls, Sandpoint is the largest community on the lake and correspondingly offers the most services for lakeside recreation. Both City Beach and Lakeview Park within the city have public docks and picnic facilities. Boaters' services are available at Sandpoint Marina (208-263-3083) at the mouth of Sand Creek, or at the Alpine Shop at 213 Church St. (208-263-5157). The Windbag at City Beach has services for sailors, and hourly and daily rentals of dinghies and canoes (208-263-7811).
For its size, Sandpoint has unusually fine dining and shopping, almost all of which is located within walking distance of the water in the downtown. Art galleries and antiques can be found throughout the city, and many businesses display the work of local artists during the town's 12 weeks of ArtWalk each summer; ArtWalk guides are available at galleries or any participating businesses.
You may also want to check out the Bonner County Historical Museum at Lakeview Park on Ella Street, where local history comes alive in life-sized displays and old photographs. The most interesting architectural feature of town is the Cedar Street Bridge, now home to a major retail store for Coldwater Creek. Just two blocks from all the downtown action is City Beach, the town’s splendid waterfront park.
Lodging on the water in Sandpoint is available at the Edgewater Lodge. For more lodging alternatives, go to the Sandpoint Online Lodging page. The Edgewater Lodge also has a site for RV campers.
The Edgewater Lodge also offers dining on the lake at its Beach House Restaurant. Other waterfront dining in Sandpoint is available at the Power House Bar & Grill inside The Old Power House next to the Sandpoint Marina; Spuds Rotisserie and Grill and Café Trinity nearby; and the Creekside Deli on the Cedar Street Bridge, spanning Sand Creek.
For history buffs, Sandpoint was first settled in 1880, when Robert Weeks opened a general store and the Northern Pacific Railroad surveyed the area. The town grew slowly from then on as a mining and timbering center.
For more about Sandpoint, browse the Sandpoint Online Community and Visitor Guide sections, and check out other pages from the Sandpoint Online home page.
Trestle Creek
About 10 miles east of Sandpoint, only a few miles before you reach the larger town of Hope, is the tiny community of Trestle Creek, built on the rocky delta of its namesake. Creekside dining and cocktails can be had at Trestle Creek Inn, and several full-service RV parks, such as Idaho Country Resorts, offer overnight and long-term sites. There's also a nice public park at Trestle Creek, maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers, with swimming and boating.
Hope and East Hope
Once a booming railroad town, Hope hugs the hills of the northeastern shore of Lake Pend Oreille, about 14 miles east of Sandpoint. Hope and East Hope, population 79 and 184 (2000 census), respectively, have a colorful history reaching back to 1882 with the construction of the Northern Pacific Railroad. The first inhabitants were Native Americans and then Chinese, who worked on the railroad and flourished in the community until the 1920s.
Hope has some of the best views of the southern arm of the lake and the Monarch Mountains, and is a great place to visit by boat or car. Two public and several private boat launches are in the city, including the best deep-water launch on the north end of the lake, under the bridge at the west end of town. Boaters' services are available at Hope Marine Services or Holiday Shores/East Hope Marina.
Hope also offers some of the nicest restaurants on the water, with tie-ups for boaters at the Floating Restaurant on Ellisport Bay and Dock of the Bay at Holiday Shores Marina.
Hope also has lodging at the luxurious Pend Oreille Shores Resort on Ellisport Bay with lake swimming, an indoor pool and athletic club and other amenities. See the Lodging page of Sandpoint Online. Several RV sites are available on the Hope Peninsula at parks like Island View and Beyond Hope. The peninsula is a game preserve, and the white-tailed deer are prolific and easily spotted, especially during evenings. The peninsula is also home to Sam Owen Park, maintained by the Forest Service as a fine campground.
Bayview
At the tip of the lake's south arm is Bayview. Situated in a very scenic fjord-like inlet, Bayview is a haven for boaters with numerous marinas, some of them with courtesy docks for customers, including Boileaus Resort & Marina, Bayview Marina, MacDonald's Hudson Bay Resort, Scenic Bay Marina and Vista Bay Marina
The Bitter End Marina caters to sailboaters and has a club house for their use.
A public boat launch in the center of town has limited moorage as well.
For dinner, the Buttonhook Inn at Boileau's Resort & Marina serves a fine selection of steaks and seafood and also has a lounge with live music on the weekends. Vista Bay serves breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Bayview has its own colorful history. The town began in 1880 when early settlers used the facilities at Steamboat Landing around the bend in Idlewilde Bay. Mines and lime quarries along the lake brought more activity until early this century, when Bayview settled into a little resort town and quiet residential area. That changed with World War II in 1942, however, when the Farragut Naval Training Station was built on more than 4,000 acres surrounding the bay; tens of thousands of recruits subsequently passed through Farragut during the war years. The Navy still has a research station in Bayview. Most of the base was turned over to the State of Idaho, and is now Farragut State Park.
Farragut is one of the state's finest parks in a dramatic natural setting offering picnicking and camping, bicycling, walking and horseback riding trails, swimming, boating and strolls through the park museum. For more on the history of Farragut, go to the story from Sandpoint Magazine, Sailors Ahoy. For more about the state park, go to Farragut Now, or to the Sandpoint Online camping page
Lakeview
Across the lake from Bayview is the tiny community of Lakeview, which sprouted up with the first mine in the area in 1888. By 1892, Lakeview had its own post office and was a steamboat port. Early this century it was popular summer resort, and it still is a beautiful spot on the lake for summer visitors, making a great stop for boaters and folks touring the Forest Service roads that surround the lake. There is camping and a few cabins for rent.
Garfield Bay
This quiet lake community was once the site of a prospective mining town that ended up in scandal. Formerly called Midas, the town was settled by Jim McNicholas, who raised money from investors but never produced any dividends. McNicholas was later jailed, and other prospectors who followed him had no luck in finding ore.
By road, Garfield Bay is 15 miles from Sandpoint and right in the middle of the western shore of the lake, making it an 18-mile boat ride to either Sandpoint or Bayview. It's also in the middle of the area where the big ones are caught. There are courtesy tie-ups at Harbor Marina, the bay's only source of boat gas and one of two convenience stores. The Forest Service maintains a public boat launch, swimming area and campground.
Bottle Bay
This small community is wrapped around a well-protected inlet about five miles southeast of Sandpoint as the boat sails and 12 miles as the car drives. The bay started as a seasonal residential area in the 1950s when frontage lots on the east shore of Bottle Bay started selling for $500. Today it is still primarily a residential area. However, Bottle Bay Marina and Resort offers a small restaurant, gas, boat launch, cabins and RV sites. For the non-aquatic, Bottle Bay makes a fine bicycle destination from Sandpoint, across the Long Bridge pedestrian and bike path that connects up to the quiet Bottle Bay Road.
