Ask anyone in Priest River where the Mudhole is and they will point you a mile east of town on US 2, to the Army Corps of Engineers' Priest River Recreation Area. The name is older than the park and has nothing to do with the water, which is the clear, slow Pend Oreille River backed up behind Albeni Falls Dam a few miles downstream. The day-use area has a sandy swim beach on a sheltered bend of the river, a boat ramp, a picnic shelter, a playground and a softball field, and the campground behind it is one of the more comfortable Corps camps in the Idaho panhandle.

The campground has about 20 non-electric sites plus a group shelter, and it is a step up from the usual vault-toilet Corps layout: flush toilets, showers and drinking water, with sites in the pines a short walk from the beach. Reservations run through recreation.gov, and the season typically opens the third weekend in May and runs into September. The Corps repaved the roads and parking in spring 2024, so the loop is in good shape. Day use of the beach and ramp is free; camping is a nightly fee.

The swimming is river swimming in name only. Albeni Falls Dam holds the Pend Oreille at summer pool from roughly June through September, so the water at the beach is flat and warms nicely by July, with a gradual sandy entry that suits kids. There are no lifeguards. The Corps draws the reservoir down each fall, and by October the beach is a wide mudflat, which is the other reason the Mudhole name sticks. Paddlers can put in at the ramp and follow the river upstream toward the mouth of the Priest River, which joins the Pend Oreille right at the edge of town, or downstream past the Priest River Wildlife Area, a state-managed stretch of marsh and slough that is good for herons and waterfowl.

Albeni Falls Dam itself, finished in 1955, is about six miles west on US 2. The visitor center offers free powerhouse tours on Saturdays in summer and there is a view of the spillway from the highway pullout. Upstream the other way, the river opens into Lake Pend Oreille at Sandpoint, 25 miles east, and the town of Priest River is the turnoff for the Priest Lake road, which runs 30 miles north to the big lake and its state park beaches.

Priest River is a former mill town at the confluence of the two rivers, with a small downtown, a museum in the old railroad depot, and a grocery and gas on the highway. The recreation area is the closest thing the town has to a beach, so summer weekends fill up early; weekday afternoons are quiet.