All season cabins coming to Bowl and Pitcher

Already awesome, the Bowl and Pitcher campground is about to get spiffier.

Up to four cabins will be built at the Riverside State Park campground just six miles from downtown Spokane. Each will be 400-square-feet, overlook the Spokane River and include plumbing and electricity. They’ll have private bathrooms, but no kitchen.

“Our plan is to have them open year round,” said Diana Dupuis, Riverside State Park manager. “As soon as they’re open, we’ll have them up and ready to reserve.”

Dupuis said construction on the cabins above the eastern loop of the campground could begin as early as this fall, open for campers in spring. Dupuis didn’t know how much the cabins will cost to rent.

The campground is one of three in the 14,000-acre state park running along the Spokane and Little Spokane rivers. The Bowl and Pitcher area is among the most popular site in the park. Aside the dramatic basalt rock formations in and around the river, the area has easy access to miles of hiking trails across the wooden suspension bridge constructed in 1941 by the Civilian Conservation Corps. The paved multiuse Centennial Trail is about a mile away by foot.

The cabins are a first for the park, though the campground used to rent out the retired Ranger House. The ranger cabin is 1,200-square-feet with kitchen, three bedrooms and fireplace, but Dupuis said it wasn’t popular among campers and the park took it out of public use.

“It just needs some work. I don’t know why it wasn’t a rent-able amenity,” Dupuis said. “We also knew we were getting these cabins. We thought, let’s just move our energy to the cabins.”

Depending on funding from the state, the park will build two to four cabins at a cost of $110,000 each, according to permit documents. A new road must also be constructed. Patano Studio Architecture, of Seattle, designed the cabins. The engineering was done by Quantum Consulting Engineers, also of Seattle. A contractor has yet to be chosen to build the cabins.