Hotels for Lodging in Idaho

Lodgingwithall Idaho destination guide is where you can make hotel reservations and find information and tips on travel to Idaho. This lodging guide will help our readers find the perfect places to stay for lodging accommodations in Idaho. Whether you are traveling with your family on a leisure holiday vacation or visiting on a corporate business trip, our Idaho lodging guide will help you find a hotel room that suits your specific needs. This is where you can find available luxury five star Idaho resorts, comfortable four star Idaho hotels, clean three star Idaho lodges, convenient two star Idaho inns, budget one star Idaho motels, the best Idaho vacation rentals, and other Idaho accomodations.

When the Idaho Territory was created (it included much of Montana and Wyoming as well), President Abraham Lincoln had difficulty finding a governor who was willing to come to this wild and rugged land. Some appointees, including Gilman Marston and Alexander H. Conner, never appeared.

They had good reason to be timorous-the area was formidable and still is. For there is not just one Idaho; there are at least a half-dozen: a land of virgin rain forests (more than one-third of the state is wooded); a high desert covering an area bigger than Rhode Island and Delaware combined; gently sloping farmland, where soft Pacific winds carry the pungency of growing alfalfa; an alpine region of icy, isolated peaks and densely forested valleys hiding more lakes and streams than have been named, counted, or even discovered; an atomic energy testing station as modern as tomorrow, only a few miles from the Craters of the Moon, where lava once poured forth and congealed in fantastic formations; and the roadless, nearly uninhabited, 2.3-million-acre Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness, where grizzly bear, moose, and bighorn sheep still run wild.

Stretching southward from Canada for nearly 500 miles and varying dramatically in terrain, altitude, and climate, Idaho has the deepest canyon in North America (Hell's Canyon, 7,913 feet), the largest stand of white pine in the world (in Idaho Panhandle National Forests), the finest big game area in the country (Chamberlain Basin and Selway), the largest wilderness area in the United States (the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness), and the largest contiguous irrigated area in the United States (created by American Falls and several lesser dams). Idaho's largest county, named after the state itself, would hold the entire state of Massachusetts; its second-largest county, Owyhee, would hold New Jersey.

In addition to superlative scenery, fishing, and hunting, visitors find such diversions as buried bandit treasure, lost gold mines, hair-raising boat trips down the turbulent Salmon River (the River of No Return), and ghost mining towns. For those who prefer less strenuous activities, Sun Valley and Coeur d'Alene have luxurious accommodations.

Millions of years ago herds of mammoth, mastodon, camels, and a species of enormous musk ox roamed the Idaho area. When Lewis and Clark entered the region in 1805, they found fur-bearing animals in such great numbers that they got in each other's way. The promise of riches in furs brought trappers, who fought the animals, the Native Americans, the country, and each other with equal gusto. They were aided and abetted by the great fur companies, including the legendary Hudson's Bay Company. The first gold strike in the Clearwater country in 1860, followed by rich strikes in the Salmon River and Florence areas, the Boise Basin, and Coeur d'Alene (still an important mining area in the state) brought hordes of miners who were perfectly willing to continue the no-holds-barred way of life initiated by fur trappers. Soon afterward the shots of warring sheepmen and cattlemen mingled with those of miners.

Mining, once Idaho's most productive and colorful industry, has yielded its economic reign, but the state still produces large amounts of silver, zinc, pumice, antimony, and lead. It holds great reserves (268,000 acres) of phosphate rock. Copper, thorium, limestone, asbestos, graphite, talc, tungsten, cobalt, nickel, cinnabar, bentonite, and a wealth of other important minerals are found here. Gems, some of the finest quality, include agate, jasper, garnets, opals, onyx, sapphires, and rubies.

Today, Idaho's single largest industry is farming. On more than 3.5 million irrigated acres, the state produces an abundance of potatoes, beets, hay, vegetables, fruit, and livestock. The upper reaches of the Snake River Valley, once a wasteland of sagebrush and greasewood, are now among the West's most fertile farmlands. Manufacturing and processing of farm products, timber, and minerals is an important part of the state's economic base. Tourism is also important to the economy.

Nowhere in Idaho is the outdoor enthusiast more than an hour's drive from a clearwater fly-fishing stream. From 2,000 lakes, 90 reservoirs, and 16,000 miles of rivers and streams, anglers take several million fish each year. Kokanee, trout (steelhead, rainbow, Kamloops, cutthroat, brown, brook, Dolly Varden, and Mackinaw), bass, perch, channel catfish, and sunfish are the most common varieties, with trout the most widespread and certainly among the scrappiest. Big game includes whitetail and mule deer, elk, antelope, bighorn sheep, mountain goat, and black bear. There are 12 kinds of upland game birds, plus ducks, Canada geese, and doves in season.

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