We’ve been Data’ing

Super excited about our new project!  A database of all public campgrounds in Washington state.  It’s taken a lot of work, but we’re getting close to representing all Forest Service, BLM, National Parks, etc. campgrounds.  BTW this comprehensive database cannot be found on any website or book in the world.

The purpose of this database is the same of this blog: To make your online campground search easier!

Screenshot of the process. USFS website on the left and the spreadsheet on the right.

We of course plan to expand to other states, based on our key learnings with WA.  successful, we will expand to other states.  We’ll keep you posted on the posting time for the database.  Can’t wait to share it!

WA Campground opens after 6 years (with quotes from Campfound)!

Washington State’s Monroe Monitor recently contacted Campfound using a photo of Troublesome Creek campground (pictured in the linked article, below).  The NFS campground – tucked away in the northern cascades several miles and a mountain away from any major highway – was reputed to be a beautiful spot, with creek side campsites and access to the vast cascade wilderness.

I personally only heard of Troublesome Creek in myth and legend.  The road to Troublesome washed out in 2006.  Some of the Campfounders had stayed there previously and had consistently recounted its special beauty.

Click the above to view the Monroe Monitor article

Almost secretly however, road crews had been building their way back to Troublesome.  The Monitor let me know it was true.  I’m not sure if the rebuild was funded by the National Recovery Act, existing NFS funds or Weyerhaeuser timber company (probably not) – and frankly I do not care.  The project put people to work and allowed citizens in the greater Seattle area to enjoy a world-class public landscape.

Thank you, whoever you are!

….And this is why we Need More Campgrounds.

One look at a summer weekend line at REI goes to show the popularity of outdoors enjoyment.
This image also represents the need for citizens to assist in preserving the existing public lands infrastructure – since it’s getting used a heck of a lot!

Website Review: FreeCampsites.net

This Memorial Day weekend, there were quite a few campers who were shocked at the crowded conditions of the state park and NFS campgrounds they reserved online.  There were also a few poor newbies who didn’t even reserve a campsite and realized there was no patch of ground available for walk-ins, so they ended up at an Econo-Lodge next to Denny’s…

With FreeCampsites.net, these type of situations should be nearly eradicated from our weekend excursions.  It is one of those rare websites that fulfills the promise of the internet: it becomes a virtual word-of-mouth, providing the user useful advice and accurate information on a specific subject.

It’s all in the name.  FreeCampsites.net outlines free areas to camp throughout the US states and Canada.  The sites are mostly Bureau of Land Management and other public-lands options rarely noted elsewhere on maps or even other online recreation searches.  In this sense, FreeCampsites.net reveals the exact locations where crowds are rare and nature is plentiful.

FreeCampsites.net landing page. Easy interface. Yes, there are ads, but they’re appropriate for a site that makes no direct $ from their subject matter. They even have a PayPal “donate” button. I recommend we use it.

Users can register and write reviews of campgrounds they’ve visited, which is invaluable in many of these cases.  There is also the ability for users to suggest a new free-campground to the website.  From my observations the webmasters do their diligence in following-up on these suggestions and, once approved, quickly add them quickly to the database.

Finally a USEFUL map on a camping website. Kudos!

The information FreeCampsites.net includes is important when taking into consideration there usually are less facilities at free campgrounds.  Yet, the website uses clear and concise descriptions and iconography to let you know if there are toilets (the big worry for most of us) maintained roads, picnic tables, etc.  Once you know what is available, you can then pack accordingly.

I’ve personally camped at at least one of the WA locations listed on FreeCampsites.net.  Quincy Lakes is an almost magical location located on the eastern gorge of the Columbia River.  A friend once told me about this area and drew-up about 5 sheets of graph paper explaining the facilities and directions.  While these personal recommendations are irreplaceable, FreeCampsites.net augments (and substantiates) them through their own research and interface.

Quincy Lakes Information Page from FreeCampsites.net

Camping should always have some adventure to it.  FreeCampsites.net just helps bring the comfort-level up a notch or two.  One NEEDS to know whether to bring their own toilet paper to a campground, and don’t get me wrong – that’s still 100 times better than staying at Econo-Lodge.

Nice Billboard, @Cheeker!

I hope this campaign won some kind of marketing award. It made me pull over and take pic of the billboard.

Discovertheforest.org is a subgroup of the National Forest Service, aimed at encouraging youth to enjoy the outdoors. Well, the billboard works on adults as well!

Also note that you can follow Discovertheforest.org on twitter and Facebook via a cute little chipmunk/squirrelly critter named Cheeker. Awwww

Panning for Gold & Throwing out Rocks in your Campground Search

Now that spring is upon us in the Pacific Northwest and people are going ape-crazy on sunny weekends, we thought it would be fun to analyze a typical campground search. 

Searching for a perfect camping spot really is like panning for gold – if you were panning in a busy marketplace with salespeople yelling offers at you:  “Here’s a map to the best panning around!”, “Pan here!  Endorsed by the National Gold Digger Service!”, etc. 

It’s an ironic situation to be looking for a quiet campground for your friends and family with a cacophony of interference bombarding you.  Nevertheless, there are GOLD NUGGETS to be found in your search.  It just takes a trained eye and diligence to tell the fool’s gold from the real thing. 

Take for example, our recent search for info on Excelsior Campground on Google.  Google just ranks sites by the most hits, the oldest, the key AdWords and so on.  Like so many things on the internet, it’s a blessing and curse.  So, we decided to take a survey of the sites encountered on page one of the search.  Below, is recap with a quick (and hopefully quick-witted) rundown of this particular search:

• Thankfully, the top link is the Recreation.gov page specifically for Excelsior!  It’s here where you can take action and make that reservation, but you want to know a bit more before you pull the trigger.

The first thing to avoid on the individual pages is the copy/paste from Recreation.gov.  the way the Feds have set it, pretty much anyone can utilize the content verbatim from the Recreation.gov page (we think as long as they link back to it).  This is quite the double-edged sword as you will find…

• The next site down is the Whatcom County portal for recreation.  In reading the description, it’s refreshing that it isn’t a rehash of the Fed site.  We learned a little more about Excelsior’s setting and history from this description: GOLD

• The next site down, “Roughinit.com” is pretty much a rehash, and a site that caters to outdoors marketing and private RV campgrounds.  While we don’t argue with them trying to make a buck and also guide RV’rs, it’s spot near the top of the page gives it a larger presence than it deserves when it comes to searching public campgrounds.  The description is also lifted from the Reservation.org website: FOOLS GOLD

• Next up, we have the actual NFS site for excelsior.  Some useful backup info here: GOLD

• Here, is an odd site.  Satelliteviews.net, apparently for people who don’t know that Google Maps exists.  For those people, this is gold.  For the other 99% of us this is: FOOLS GOLD

• Following up is Pickatrail.com.  This website is a topo map repository in which you can purchase maps to the area.  I suppose it’s good if you’re looking for a hike, but we want to know if our base camp will be awesome.  Please, keep out of our campground search!  FOOLS GOLD

• Now we’re already getting into the dregs of our search with Washington.hometownlocator.com.  the page has a brief bulleted list of Excelsior from Recreation.gov, the requisite Google Map and little else to offer.  We’re not searching for our home, nor our town!  FOOLS GOLD

• What the F***K is “Traveling Luck”?  Apparently, it’s another marketing site littered with nonsense ads.  Oh, here’s a banner ad for a Norwegian Cruise.  Let’s dump the kids and the friends and just go on a cruise.  We can pitch our tents on the deck: FOOLS GOLD

• Check out the itouchmap.com site for excelsior.  Yet another page that pretty much uses the Google Map link as a gateway to sell you crap.  Thanks for telling us that “There is no Streetview available for this location”.  That’s a good thing.  Why would we want to camp somewhere within reach of Streetview?!  iTouchmap should make you iTouch the back button on your browser: FOOLS GOLD

• The final site on the search page is Hookandbullet.com.  Besides the fact that the name of the site sounds like an NRA convention at your local fairgrounds, it’s yet another copy/paste rehash of the recreation.gov description:  FOOLS GOLD

Special Bonus Review: 

• Bootsnall.com has been mucking up our campground search at every turn.  Even though it’s thankfully not on our first search page, it deserves a special place for everything that’s bad about searching for camping on the internet.
• The most egregious aspect of Bootsnall.com is the campground descriptions.  While they’re not a copy/paste from Recreation.gov, they are a copy/paste from one campground to another!
• At first the flowery description entices us, “… to reacquaint ourselves with nature, fall asleep to the hoots of owls…”  However, there’s something unseemly with the description.  It’s a bit too flowery, reading more like a marketing brochure for a retirement home.

• Upon searching other campgrounds on Bootsnall, one finds the SAME DESCRIPTION repeated, with just the next campground’s name inserted like a Mad-Lib into the text:

• Bootsnall reminds us of those old Myspace invites from barely dressed Russian women who want to be your “friend”.  Wow, really?  You want to share your life with me and it’s free with no bikini strings attached?  Awesome!  … A week later, it’s “I need $100 dollars to turn my heat back on.  I’ll intimately chat with you some more if you can money-order it to Moscow.”
• Out of curiosity, we looked at Bootsandall’s “About Us” page thinking they were some site from a foreign land trying to make a quick buck playing campground Mad-Libs, but to our surprise they are located in Vancouver WA!  This fact just made their site all the more egregious and frankly made us embarrassed to share the same state with such a poor excuse for a camping website:  FOOLS GOLD

 

The moral, of course, is to look for certain cues that indicate the webpage you’re on isn’t just in it for the money.  Use your experience and the above examples to cut through the interference to find the pages and people that truly care about outdoor recreation and specifically camping.  Like gold in the pan, you will have to do some sifting to find these websites but with some focus, you can find your gold and have the unique camping experience you’ve earned through your diligent search.   

A Hell Hole by Any Other Name = Better Camping

Hell Hole Campground in the Sumter NF of South Carolina has been trashed so much that the NFS may have to close it.

Story from CBS 7, Spartanburg SC

Couple of Suggestions Here:

1.  This sounds like a great opportunity for the NFS and the NF Foundation to reach-out to the community and ask for volunteer “check-ins”.  Kinda like a neighborhood watch for the campground.  After reading the story, there seems to be enough passion from the citizens to develop such a plan.  Private/Public is the ONLY way to approach such matters, as history has shown us.  Campfound commends the NFS for soliciting comments before they make their final decision, and wishes the area good luck in resolving this issue!

2.  Change the name of the campground so it’s not as self-fulfilling.  I’m sure there’s history behind the name but, Hell Hole … really?!

Make a Video to get your Peeps Pumped for Camping!

Back in 2010, I was tasked with getting my Campanions excited about our group event, known as C-Life. I had reserved a huge campground on the North Fork of the Tieton River in the Cascades of Washington, so we could accommodate lots of people to enjoy a long car-camping weekend. To drive interest I put together a little video celebrating our previous excursions. The vid was a success and about 50 peeps showed up! I highly recommend taking the time this spring to put together a video of your own! http://vimeo.com/m/11348826

If You Haven’t Seen it yet – Yosemite Time Lapse!

A friend posted a video from a group called “Project Yosemite” a couple of days ago on Facebook. I haven’t been able to stop watching it since!

Though we’ve seen time lapse videos Ad nausea, the clear passion that filmmakers Sheldon Neill and Colin Delehanty bring to this project sets it apart.

My brother emailed me with the thought,

“What would John Muir think about it?”

Notwithstanding a brief view of headlights on the valley floor, I think “Project Yosemite” comes touch-close to capturing the “Range of Light” like no man-made artifact has since the writings of Muir, himself.

A Call to Bring Back the CCC for Camping

Fact: Many public campgrounds have been shuttered for years event though the closures are categorized as “temporary”.

Most – like the awesome Troublesome Creek in Washington state – have been closed due to flood damage. As previously reported, California State parks are proposing a closure of 70 public lands locations due to budgetary constraints!

View from Troublesome Creek Campground in WA. Campground has been closed since 2007 floods.

It’s self-evident that current government can’t handle the infrastructural upkeep for campgrounds, yet most available campgrounds are usually booked months in advance, lines at REI and Cabelas are HUGE come spring, and more people are “staycationing” during these times.

The high demand for public lands is creek-clear. Whenever a location is closed, it effects all of us. In the coming weeks, we’ll explore positive approaches to remedy this issue.

One idea is to bring back the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) – the organization that built many of these original campgrounds during the Great Depression.

Here’s a cogent argument for re-introducing the CCC by Seattle Times Columnist, Ron Judd during the Great Recession.

Take a read and please let us know your thoughts!

The Campfound Crew enjoying Troublesome Creek in June, 2006