Liberty Park, Washington…

When I first began looking for a park in the Spokane, Washington area I wanted to find one about midway between Spokane and Coeur D’Alene. I also wanted it to be a state park if possible so we could enjoy the scenery. The only one I could find that met all my wants was one of the largest county parks in the State of Washington, Liberty Lake Regional Park. However, I couldn’t find one single review on it. I even went to RVillage.com and could not find any information there either. In fact I had to request they add the park since it wasn't in their system. This over 3,500 acre park simply had no information at all…

Well, I decided we should try it anyway since it seemed to be the perfect site. I drove the roads as well as I could with our weak internet signal using Google Earth. The road looked tight but doable however I couldn’t drive in Google Earth past the entrance. So we left Cataldo, Idaho and made our way into the state of Washington where Liberty Lake Park is located. As we turned off the highway we entered a small commercial district and then drove into a neighborhood with skinny streets.  There were a few low branches causing us to take the middle of the road in order to avoid them.

After leaving the neighborhood the road narrowed a bit more making it a major challenge had we happened to encounter another vehicle as big as we were. Fortunately we didn’t… When we finally made it to the entrance, we could see the only way in for us was through the exit .  Sharon jumped out to get the OK from the gate attendant and now is where it got interesting. The road into the campground is a narrow single lane dirt road with no way another vehicle of any size could get by. About a quarter mile or so we found the park and noticed a lot of low hanging branches.

We did manage with only a few of the fir trees wiping the dust off the top of our rig and managed to nestle up against the side of a big fir tree and park in our downhill sloped site. After leveling, our front tires were well off the ground (about 7 inches), something I usually avoid but just couldn’t here. Sooo after all the adventure we are in a nice park in the hills near a lake with a trailhead 50 feet from our front door. I am not sure we would return to this park due to the drive in but we will certainly enjoy it while we are here.

Taking full advantage of the trailhead nearby we spent the next day taking a 8.5 mile loop called the Liberty Loop. It's mostly well cared for trail with the exception of small stretches of steep climbs or some steep downhill parts. The feature on this trail is a waterfall but we were warned by the camp host that there would be not a lot of water at this time due to the dry conditions. We noticed lots of very large fir and western red cedar on this trail and although the waterfall was merely a trickle cascading over a few rocks (not even worthy of a picture) the hike was indeed a good one overall.

While here we hope to explore more of Coeur D’Alene and of course Spokane, Washington…