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PIREPS on Priest Lake USFS

alpinelakespilot2000

Well Known Member
Has anyone been to Priest Lake USFS recently (e.g. this year)? I need to fly to Priest Lake to spend 4-5 days at Kalispel Bay, so Cavanaugh Bay is a bit less convenient. It has been a couple years for me, but I've found the surface conditions at Priest Lake USFS less consistent and more likely to have loose gravel, sometimes a fair amount. Any updates? Thanks.
 
OK. I'll post my own PIREP, though unfortunately no pictures.

Relative nice, long strip, good approach from both directions. As I remembered, more gravel in places than Cavanaugh Bay for sure, but plenty of places where there is more grass/weeds than gravel to land and take off on. Parking spots/tie downs were both grass/weeds and/or gravel, but again there were enough places where you could do a run-up stationary if you want and not worry about the prop kicking up gravel. Definitely was happy with the greater prop clearance the taildragger gave me, but would not hesitate with a nosewheel and average length prop.

There is what appears to be an old white segmented circle made of cement right in the middle of the runway, which caused some consternation until a few low passes confirmed it was old and appeared to be flush with the ground. Landed short of midfield anyway so it was a non issue and then confirmed that it was indeed flush and could be taxied over or landed on with no issues.

In short, thumbs up if you need to be on the western side of the lake but definitely not as plush as Cavanaugh Bay.
 
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