Best Cabin Camping near Porthill, ID

I worked at Priest Lake State Park as a residential biologist for the summer of 2016. It was an amazing experience! I had access to parts of the park not allowed to campers. The staff are all very friendly and nice to work with. The hand- scooped homemade ice cream is worth it alone! Kayaking up the thoroughfare to the upper lake is a great workout with some amazing and beautiful scenery and animals along the way. You will see lots of moose, and sometimes black bears. If you take the short hike to Moose lake, there is excellent rainbow trout fishing, and gorgeous scenery as well. Hunt lake trail is a beautiful trail to hike, but not for beginners. Priest Lake itself is a little chilly when first getting in to swim, but is very refreshing in the mountain heat. There are many good places to pick huckleberries all over the area! The campgrounds at the Indian Creek unit, which is where the headquarters and store are located, are very clean. There are plenty of RV and tent camping sites and 5 cabins available to rent. All cabins sleep different numbers of people, ranging from 5 to 9, the moose cabin being the largest and nicest. The cabins have no bathrooms or kitchens but boast fire rings and are right across from communal park bathrooms and showers. The lion head unit on the upper lake is about 12 miles up the road from Indian Creek turning into gravel about 8 miles up right before moose lake. It has a few smaller camper sites and many tent sites available. There is a maintenance shed along with a small ranger booth which also serves as a small store with ice and other foods and small supplies. There are first aid kits and radios available at all campground ranger booths. Priest lake has amazing fishing for rainbow trout, Mackinaw (lake trout), smallmouth bass, and Pike minnow (as the main species). The nearest town, Coolin, UD, is about 12 miles down the road. It is a small town with a store, a diner and a bar/ restaurant. The diner and restaurant have decent staple foods for what they have to offer. The store is fairly small but generally has most of the foods and supplies needed for restocking your camping food or obtaining the odds and ends you may have forgotten or overlooked at home. All around it is a beautiful place to visit with friendly staff and locals and I would highly recommend it to anyone seeking an unforgettable family camping experience.

There are 3 campgrounds. One is a group camp that sells out quick. Reservations are 9 months in advance and it is a phone call of luck that will get you this prime area. The group camp has its own private dock and beach. The cabin has multiple bunk beds and a kitchen with fridge and range/oven. Also a microwave. 2 showers and 2 restrooms. There are RV slots available here. We love the privacy and ability to not worry about any unlocked vehicles or items left in the beach The other two sites are Lionhead and Indian Creek. Indian Creek as a store and laundry facilities. They also have a few cabins to rent. Showers and rv slots available. Lionhead is further up the road (just north of the group camp) and is a little smaller.

Ended our tour of Northern Idaho at spot #140. Tons of flat area to put down a tent, mosquito shade (they are pretty bad), and enjoy the amazing view!

Bathrooms with vault toilets, water pump, and grey water dump all just a short walk away

It is a gorgeous area. Our spot was about 20 feet from the water. Sandy campsite is a nice change of pace from dirt ( although I love dirt😁). The staff were incredible friendly and welcoming. I am a solo camper +🐶 and I felt very safe here. Very family friendly place. I really just wish more places would allow dogs at the beach or even have a nice sectioned off part for the doggies. Very heartbreaking to be so close to that beautiful water and not be able to enjoy it because I couldn't bring my bestie. 😕 Otherwise, I love it and will return!!

All the state (not Federal) parks at both Priest and Lake Pend Oreille (Farragut) have become prohibitively expensive for out of staters. Per the Boise newspaper a state legislator from Hayden. ID was angered that he was unable to camp the state parks in his area at the drop of a hat 'due to the large number of out of state campers'(who had the foresight to make reservations months in advance). He was able to push a punitive bill through the State legislature which effectively more than doubled out of state camp fees in these two parks. Not only is the camp site at least twice as expensive but there is now a daily vehicle fee added. A basic campsite (no utilities) can now cost upwards of $70 per night.

Lionhead is by far my favorite campground of hundreds I’ve been to. it’s designed more for tent camping of very small rv’s such as truck campers or tent trailers. There are numerous trails to explore and the beach is beautiful white sand with crystal clear water. Indian Creek is also nice and has a store with everything you could need and ice cream by the scoop. Indian Creek also has full and partial hookup sites - free hot showers- and boat slips to rent.

SO! you get to this campground via boat only. There is a thoroughfare between upper and lower Priest Lake. Once when I camped there, we were in an overloaded canoe in a thunderstorm. I would not advise that route of access :) That trip included an amazing experience though. After the storm blew through, camp had been established and dinner was over, we set out in the canoe. It was Wednesday, in early summer. No other campsites were occupied on Upper Priest, we were the only ones there. As dusk deepened, the stars came out and the lake was so calm is was a perfect mirror. The stars were visible in the lake. Down became up and up was down and all was well in the world for a time that evening on Upper Priest!

I’ve been to Priest countless times. Camp in the woods or on the beach. Upper or lower Priest Lake.

Campground was clean and spread out. There was a day use peach nearby so was a little loud with volleyball players and day use people. The Lake is gorgeous! Paddle Boarding, boating, kayaking...all a great time!

I would have given it 4 stars about 5 years ago when we first stayed as it seemed a lot friendlier staff willing to please their customers but I'm not sure if it was sold since then but I had to give it only 2 stars this time because the negatives outweighed the positives. Pros: Friendly staff that helps you park if you need it. Location is fairly close to the town of Bonners Ferry and Sandpoint so you are never too far from civilization. Although I've never used it, they do have wine in the evenings for their guests...not sure if they charge or not. They also sell wood and when we were there 5 years ago, they delivered it to our site. Also, the site we stayed in that time was not full hook ups and the staff still helped us dump without having to move our rig. Cons: Everything everyone says about the pot holes, dirt road, train noise and turn off from the 95 is spot on. The one thing I didn't hear anyone mention is the noise from the 95 of cars that can be as loud as the constant train passing in the middle of the night. So, quiet and serene is not a good description. The"lake" although which can be fun for small kids fishing and maybe paddle boating, is more of a large pond that is dark and gloomy like and so when you first see it, you might be disappointed at it being called a lake. Although friendly, I didn't find it as hospitable as it used to be when we were first there five years ago and you get the distinct feeling that they are barely surviving as they will not do anything extra to refund or make things whole if you experience is not up to par. Here is why: We were charged half of the amount to reserve the spot we wanted and in order to keep a particular spot you pick, you have to pay a little extra to reserve it or you can still risk having them move you to a different spot if they want to. That's a first. It's true they can't control the weather and I don't really blame them for that, but good vacation industries will go out of their way to keep their customers happy when things are not up to par. We paid for six days and with the stifling heat, along with the fires that were in the area, we were smoked out and weren't told that campfires were restricted per an ordinance they were given before we made the trip there. The entire camping experience was ruined because the only choice we had to not to feel choked out was to stay indoors in the RV. We only stayed one night since this was miserable and decided to leave the next day. When we got home we received an email requesting our input of our stay and we told them a partial refund would have been nice since accommodations were not up to standards. Instead, we were told that in order for them to stay in business and because they have few drop ins, they have to take 50% deposits up front. This seems fair but we paid for the entire week, so it seems to me that in good faith and good customer service, 50% or even some refund at all would have kept us coming back despite the cons. They also claimed that charging 50% is better than some places that want all the money upfront when you book. We have been RVing for years in this area and there are much better places to go that do not do this I'm not really sure why they asked us for our input in the first place. Anyway, as a result we won't be back.