Cabinet Mountains

A pilot friend of mine highly recommended a flight to a small resort community in northern Idaho called Cavanaugh Bay. It’s a short hour flight from our home airport, Kalispell City (S27), in Montana.

Cavanaugh Bay (CB) is located on the south shore of Priest Lake near Coolin, ID – a huge recreational lake that straddles the Canadian and Idaho borders. The attraction of CB, according to my friend, is a small resort of housekeeping cabins located right on the lake, a great restaurant adjacent to the resort and both are a short walk from a beautiful 3100 ft grass strip, Cavanaugh Bay Airport (66S). Sitting on the deck of our cabin overlooking the lake with a glass of wine we could almost reach up and touch the airplanes as they made their approach to the landing strip. A really neat experience for a pilot (and the wife) to see.

So, early in September Chris and I decided to take our friend’s advice and fly Dorothy to 66S for a quick get-a-way week end. The photo above is a view of our crossing the Cabinet Mountains that border NW Montana and NE Idaho. We were cruising on a VFR flight plan with ATC flight following at 11500 feet. You may notice that the photo looks a little “hazy”. What’s creating the haze is smoke from wildfires in Montana and Idaho that plagued the northwest all late summer.

Cavanaugh Bay Airport

The grass airstrip is well maintained by the state of Idaho. The calm wind approach is from north to south over the lake. The threshold for runway 15 is almost right on the lake and makes for a very scenic arrival and landing. The photo to the left is looking down runway 15. Tie downs are available and no fee for overnight parking. Not only is the resort close by, but a camping area with picnic tables and a restroom adjacent to the runway is available for pilots. It’s an ideal fly-in destination into the Idaho back country.

On the second day we borrowed the airport’s courtesy car and drove into Coolin, a very small resort community about 10 miles from CB. The main attractions of Coolin are the marina and the general store that carries just about anything one would need. We wiled away an hour or so with ice cream cones and people watching on the general store’s patio.

View from Cav Bay Restaurant

We had lunch and dinner at the Cavanaugh Bay Restaurant, a very short walk from our cabin. The restaurant’s patio is right on the lake and you can watch the boaters, water skiers and fishermen. It was a gorgeous late summer afternoon and we felt our experience at the restaurant was so good that I wrote a Trip Advisor review applauding the great service, food and location. Did I mentioned the restaurant bar had a great selection of local draft beers?

Om Monday we headed back home to Bigfork. The takeoff was from runway 33 sloping downhill toward the lake, which was the opposite direction from our arrival. Even though we again flew VFR on the return flight, flying southeast into the mid-morning sun and wildfire smoke created, in reality, an IFR flight.

Below are some additional photos of the Cavanaugh Bay airport area.