Campers warm to challenge

Gray skies, cold temperatures and all-around miserable wet weather didn’t deter hard-core campers determined to tough it out for Memorial Day Weekend.

“This is what camping’s all about,” said Linda Wyman, who – along with her three grandchildren – braved the rain at Riverside State Park.

Not everyone was as hardy, however.

Friday night, both Riverside State Park and Liberty Lake County Park were packed with eager campers raring to be one with the great outdoors. By Saturday morning, half those at Liberty Lake had already packed their cars and left for home. All 35 camping spots at Riverside State Park were taken by 5 p.m. Friday, said park ranger Jeremy Jalali. At noon the following day, about a dozen were available again.

“It got kind of nasty here for a while,” said Wyman, describing the rain Friday that sent her group scurrying into tents for the warmth of sleeping bags.

The weather for the rest of the weekend doesn’t look promising for campers: a 30 percent chance of more rain, according to the National Weather Service, with temperatures dipping into the lower 40s at night and not getting much warmer than 60 degrees during the day.

Susan Nelson of Spokane and her group of five felt lucky Friday to nab the last camping spot at Liberty Lake. But the night was hardly relaxing; it played out like a scene from “Survivor.”

While roasting hot dogs, the rain fell and doused their fire, leaving them with a meal of soggy buns and half-cooked wieners. As friends from Spokane called their cell phone to warn about the rapidly deteriorating weather, Nelson and the gang huddled under a tree to escape being pelted by hail. They slept in an SUV, instead of tents.

“I don’t know why we go camping on Memorial Day — tradition I guess,” Nelson said.

The wet weather hardly fazed the likes of Joyce Gabriel, another Liberty Lake camper. Several years ago, she, her husband and their five children spent two months camping while the family searched for a home. Instead of rushing home Saturday like some campers, the Gabriels made plans to ignore the rain, continue with an afternoon hike and hook up with friends, who were bringing a cake to celebrate daughter Tori Gabriel’s 9th birthday.

“We usually start out on Memorial Day weekend and we usually go (camping) every other weekend throughout the summer,” Joyce Gabriel said. “If you’re a die-hard, this is when you’re going to camp.”

Many came prepared for the soggy weekend by hauling extra sleeping bags, fleece blankets and tarps to cover their tents.

Besides all those extras, Marvin Pratt brought his trailer, too. “If it gets really bad, we’ll go in there,” said the camper at Riverside State Park.

And if the weather got even worse, Pratt didn’t have too far to go for shelter. He lives just up the hill in the West Central neighborhood.

“This is like a mini-vacation,” he said.

Those who want their getaway to include the comforts of home could follow the example of LeAnne Schubach, who’s spending the weekend at the Liberty Lake campground. She and her family camped in style inside a 39-foot motor home, complete with a DVD player and flat screen television.

The Schubachs meet two other families for a Memorial Day campout tradition that dates back 12 years. The campground is close to her Liberty Lake home, but has a faraway feel, Schubach said.

“You get deer, you get moose, you get cougar,” she said. “It’s just remote enough but we’re close enough to the store.”