Farragut State Park is about 40 minutes north of Coeur d’Alene and is one of our favorite state parks. Since we used to live in this area we are very familiar with the park and have not only stayed here many times before but have hiked every trail multiple times. The bad news is that in June 2021, due to the popularity of this park, the camping rates and the day use rates have increased for non-residents. Ouch!! None the less, we stayed 10 nights at the park but had to split up our stay at 2 different sites because reservations are so difficult to get. AND we did purchase an annual state park pass ($80 for non residents) to reduce our tow vehicle costs which would have been $14 a day. Another ouch!!
View of Lake Pend Oreille
Campground: Gilmore Campground
Location: Athol, Idaho
Site: 330 (back-in)
Cost: $76 (non-resident price – raised in June 2021 – we should move back!!!)
Services: E/W
Comments: Gilmore Campground East is our favorite campground at Farragut but we could not secure a site there and got GIlmore West instead. No problem, we still love it. It was a nice, private back-in site with nice shade and close to the hiking trails!
Campground: Waldron Kestrel Campground
Location: Athol, Idaho
Site: 163 (pull thru)
Cost: $76
Services: E/W
Comments: The Waldron campground tends to have more families with kids since the campground has several wide open grassy areas for the children to play but we still enjoy this campground. Our site was right next to the volleyball court but the campground wasn’t crowded so it was not a problem.
We took a few trips down memory lane and visited Hayden, Coeur d’Alene, and Bayview. Not much has changed and yet everything has changed. How is that possible???
And of course our favorite activity at Farragut is hiking. With 45 miles of trails, some in the forest, and some along the shoreline of Lake Pend Oreille, it is hard to go wrong. We had beautiful weather and lovely days of trekking the area going to the Buggy Trail, Buttonhook Bay, Beaver Bay, and the lovely Shoreline Trail.
We also visited the Museum of the Brig and the boat launch and continued to find feathers along the way.
We love this place but with the steep price of roughly $90 a night for a campground we may have to rethink our options (just suck it up and pay the price, move back to Idaho, or become camp hosts)!!!!
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