Lovely.magnificent.Gorgeous.

The natural beauty of the Selkirk Loop earns those accolades – and more – from visitors. And for your travels around the Loop, there’s no better place to take it all in than Sandpoint. Find terrific lodging choices, more than 40 fine restaurants, a busy entertainment calendar plus fun activities from hiking, biking, boating and skiing ... to just plain hanging in that hammock. See you here!

Scotchman Peaks Proposed Wilderness

From Sandpoint along the Lake Pend OreilleKootenai River Super Side Trip, serious seekers of solitude can easily access the 88,000-acre Scotchman Peaks roadless area that spans the Idaho-Montana border. Since the 1970s, when the U.S. Forest Service carried out extensive evaluations of lands suitable for wilderness, this rugged, scenic and biologically diverse portion of the Cabinet Mountains has been managed for its wilderness potential. Scotchman Peak, at 7,009 feet, is the highest peak in Bonner County and one of the best-loved hikes in the Cabinet Mountains, a range that runs for 150 miles and spreads across two states, Idaho and Montana.

The views from Scotchman Peak are magnificent: the expanse of Lake Pend Oreille to the southwest, the rugged proposed wilderness to the north, and the Cabinet Mountain Wilderness Area to the east. Some say that the views are better than Washington’s Abercrombie Mountain, Hall Mountain and Copper Butte, or Idaho’s Mount Roothaan (near Chimney Rock). The views are truly hard to beat, plus there’s a strong likelihood of seeing mountain goats, making for a special wildlife-viewing treat.

Scotchman Peak also serves as a great jumping off point for excursions into some fabulous backcountry. To learn more about the proposed wilderness and see a schedule of guided hikes, look up Friends of Scotchman Peaks Wilderness at www.ScotchmanPeaks. org. The group is working to preserve the Scotchmans and recently published a detailed, informative map. For a complete guidebook to hikes in the Cabinet Mountains, pick up a copy of “Trails of the Wild Cabinets” sold at the Sandpoint Visitor Center.

This roadless area is part of the CabinetYaak ecosystem, a home for a few grizzly bears as well as wolves, which reestablished themselves naturally from Canada (they were not reintroduced). Present also are rare birds and animals such as the fisher, pine marten, wolverine and boreal owl.