Idaho's deepest lake — and the Navy's submarine test tank.
Lake Pend Oreille is Idaho's largest and deepest lake, 1,150 feet at its deepest point and 46 miles long — deep and quiet enough that the U.S. Navy has tested submarine acoustics here since the 1960s at its Bayview research base.
Lake Pend Oreille stretches 46 miles across the Idaho Panhandle, carved by the same Missoula Floods that shaped neighboring Coeur d'Alene Lake's basin roughly 12,000 to 15,000 years ago. It's Idaho's largest and deepest lake at 1,150 feet, deep and quiet enough that the U.S. Navy's Acoustic Research Detachment at Bayview has tested submarine and surface-ship acoustics here since the 1960s — Idaho's own small submarine fleet, dating to the 1940s Farragut Naval Training Station, still operates on the lake today. Sandpoint, on the north shore, anchors the commercial base: Evans Brothers Coffee Roasters, ranked among the top independent coffee shops in the country by USA Today in 2024, and a full downtown dining scene. Bottle Bay Resort & Marina, Dover Bay Marina, and Action Water Sports cover the boating around the lake's 46-mile length. Sandpoint covers the grocery run and the hospital.
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