Coeur d'Alene, the heart of recreation

COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho — Heading east from Spokane, it's easy to know when you're getting close to Coeur d'Alene, even without looking at road signs. Just look up at the tops of telephone poles and light posts, where you begin noticing large, truck-tire sized masses of tangled twigs and tree branches, pine needles and scrubby grasses — osprey nests. Which, like their feathered, fish-eating occupants, seem to be everywhere.

And with good reason: Though it's 400 miles from the Pacific Ocean and its various tendrils of tidewater, this inland Northwest resort area is awash in water — creeks, rivers and lakes galore. (Not to mention three water-slide parks within 15 minutes of downtown, which, given summertime temps that linger in the 90s, is a very good thing indeed.)

The crown jewel of all this water is sparklingly beautiful and crystal clear Lake Coeur d'Alene. Once named one of the five most beautiful alpine lakes in the world by National Geographic magazine, the meandering 25-mile-long, Whidbey Island-shaped lake boasts 135 miles of shoreline, and draws not only fish hawks by the hundreds but tourists — more and more in recent years — and relocating newcomers by the thousands.

Kootenai County, in which Coeur d'Alene is located, is tops in the country for job creation — mostly in tourism and construction — and is the second fastest-growing county in Idaho.

"We've seen a real discovery of Coeur d'Alene by the rest of the country as a first-class destination, either for recreation or second homes," says Jonathan Coe, president of the Coeur d'Alene Area Chamber of Commerce.

Wealth of activities

Recreation opportunities, one of the biggest reasons for those tourists and second-home buyers, abound here in Coeur d'Alene. Boating, fishing, swimming (pretty much anything water-related) as well as bicycling, golfing, skiing and snowboarding. You name it and you can do it in the Coeur d'Alene area.

While here this summer for the fourth annual Ironman Triathlon, which has become the area's biggest event and pumps some $4 million into the local economy during Ironman week, my family and I did our best to immerse ourselves in a few of those outdoor opportunities.

Head due north from Coeur d'Alene on Highway 95 for about 15 miles and you reach Silverwood Theme Park, the largest amusement park in the Northwest. Among its 60 rides and amusements are Tremors and Timber Terror, two of the biggest wooden roller coasters you'll find anywhere, and a new, aptly named contraption of self-imposed anguish called the Panic Plunge.

But this being summer in Idaho's Panhandle (code for hotter than you-know-what), we made for Boulder Beach Water Park. Which was dreamy. Along with the requisite fast, faster, fast-and-dark, fastest-and-darkest tube slides, the park offers a really terrific wave pool. You can actually get a little ride off the waves, not just bob up and down.

On the way-relaxing Elkhorn Creek tube float you can leisurely make your way around the park via inflatable tube. Polliwog Park is a mini-slide, pool and beach for the single-digit set, while the Velocity Peak is a 62-foot near-vertical drop for those who've not lost enough of their lunch on the Panic Plunge.

Not far from Silverwood, we stayed for a few nights at the year-old Holiday Inn Express in Hayden, which, we figured, must have been dreamt up by children. For either attached to the hotel or somewhere on the hotel grounds were a bowling alley, rock-climbing spire, go-kart track, miniature golf course, bumper boats and Raptor Reef, an indoor water park.

Especially popular with Baker, my 7-year-old son, was the Velociraptor Vortex, in which one swirled round and round in a giant funnel before being "drained" out at the bottom.

"It's like you're being flushed down the toilet," he said with great glee, oh, maybe 400 times.

Back in town

Poised on the north shore of the lake that bears its name, the town of Coeur d'Alene was founded in 1887, though French fur traders inhabited the area long before that. Coeur d'Alene was the name they came up with for the area's Native Americans. It means "heart of the awl," a reference to their sharp trading practices.

Mining, logging and railroading were the early industries here. These days it's tourism. And construction. Like many burgeoning communities in the West, downtown CDA (as it's often referred to) is abuzz with building. Amid its cafes, restaurants and shops, giant cranes hover over holes in the ground, orange cones direct you where and where not to walk.

Much of it is the work of Duane Hagadone, who has a hand in seemingly all aspects of Coeur d'Alene life. Along with owning the local newspapers (Coeur d'Alene and Post Falls presses), half a dozen restaurants, several marinas and motels, a new golf-course condo development and more, the Hagadone Corp. owns two of the area's most recognizable icons — the Coeur d'Alene Resort and its resort golf course, renowned for its floating-island 14th green. More on that in a moment.

Perched at water's edge, adjacent to City Park and its public swimming beach, the 18-story, 337-room resort is surrounded on three sides by a marina and a three-quarter-mile-long floating boardwalk. It's the longest boardwalk of its kind in the world and makes for lovely boat- and water-ogling perambulations.

Ninety-minute and two-hour lake cruises leave four times daily from here, too. They're relaxing and a fun way to learn about the area's natural and cultural history.

On our 90-minute early-evening tour, we were treated to stupendous scenery — forested mountain folds tumbling down to water's edge — and mini explorations into the lake's various nooks and crannies, where locals live and play.

Different perspective

From a mile out on the lake, Coeur d'Alene looks like a toy village against a background of dark hills. There was no one else out on the water save for a few kayaks and sailboats; overhead it was all ospreys and the occasional parasailer.

Our boat cruised by Black Rock, a new resort and golf-course community developed by Marshall Chesrown, who, like Hagadone, is another one of CDA's mover-and-shaker moneymakers. He's got several resort projects on the horizon, both here and in Spokane.

Nearer to town, we saw cyclists, walkers and runners on the lakeside North Idaho Centennial Trail, a 30-mile-long paved pathway that connects with Spokane's Centennial Trail. The section we saw used to be Interstate 90, but a few years ago, when the freeway was moved a few miles inland, it was converted to a road for cars and lakeside trail.

We passed Tubbs Hill Natural Area, a several hundred-foot-high forested hillock that rises up from downtown. Crisscrossed by trails and with terrific water and downtown views from the top, it's almost a carbon copy of Sehome Hill Arboretum in Bellingham, except here it's all ponderosas and pine cones, not Douglas firs and sword ferns.

From the hill's lower flanks, bare-chested young males dive off rocky bluffs into warm Lake Coeur d'Alene; try that in Bellingham and you better be wearing a wet suit and neoprene hood.

One of a kind

Near the end of our lake cruise, we passed slowly by the resort golf course's 14th green. The Putter, a small water taxi, had just returned to its mini dock after ferrying golfers out to and back from the world's only movable floating golf green.

"The story is that the owner (Hagadone) saw logs floating in the lake to a mill and figured it'd be great to have a green that does the same thing," Andy Mackimmie, the course's golf pro, had told me earlier in the day.

The green sits upon more than 100 30-by-10-by-3 ½-foot concrete blocks that are filled with buoyant polystyrene.

Area-wise, the green is 15,000 square feet which sounds like a lot, but surrounded as it is by all that water, golfers find it hard not to let it seep into their heads. About three out of four who tee off end up in the drink their first time. That's a lot of balls in Lake Coeur d'Alene.

"We have a diver who picks up 30,000 golf balls from the bottom of the lake each year," Mackimmie said. "He contracts out from us and then he resells them."

The boat ride over and back on dry land, we headed back to our Holiday Inn. Our son, Baker, had one thing on his mind: the Velociraptor Vortex.

"Can we do it, dad?" He begged. "It's really fun, it's ... ."

"We know," my wife and I said in tandem. "Like you're being flushed down the toilet."

Mike McQuaide is a Bellingham freelance writer and author of "Day Hike! Central Cascades" (Sasquatch Books) and newly published "Insiders' Guide to Bellingham" (Falcon). He can be reached at mikemcquaide@comcast.net.