Request For Comments - Backcountry Campsite Details Info?

[FuzzySideDown]

Hey gang.....

I know I've talked to a few of you about this, but in looking at the Backcountry Site Availability screen, the names of the sites almost scream the need to be links to more details about the given campsite. Before heading down the wrong path right out of the gate, what would be things you'd like to see on a "details" page for each campsite? Some things might be easy... Some things might be hard... but everything is on the table with regards to ideas at this point...

Here's some starter ideas...

site description
number of tent sites
Are fires allowed?
Links with distance to nearest other sites?
Pictures... Pictures... Pictures...
Pictures of each tent site? Food prep area? Food storage area? Pit toilet area?
Link to dedicated forum thread specific to each campsite perhaps?

Other stuff?

Toss out your ideas, and we'll see what we can come up with....

Thanks gang...
Cheers!

Kyle....

[Ipasha Jen]

Tent pad ratings? Estimates on Dimensions?
COS: The Third site from the food prep is extra large and flat. Also has the best lake access

I wish I would have know that HEL has a food prep with zero shade. Might have considered bringing a UL tarp.

[paul]

COS: The Third site from the food prep is extra large and flat. Also has the best lake access

I always liked the last (4th) site from the food prep area. It's the most private and has plenty of room.

[mattB]

In the Route Planner I started creating "Details" files for the campsites.
I didn't do very many, but I think Brown Pass, Boulder Pass, HOL, and Stoney Indian have Details files.

Maybe we could create one set of details files and have both the RoutePlanner and the Backcountry Site availability link to the same files?

[FuzzySideDown]

Hey Matt. Right on. You bet. Having one set of data would make sense for sure. What you have would be a great starting point with data on the sites you have. I may need to look at your site details files and remind myself how that was all laid out. I was considering storing the data in a database and building an interface of sorts over it so as to not need to maintain separate files for each site. It might be a bit more work up front but hopefully simplify the maintenance of the data over time and have roughly only one view file to maintain if we ever needed to change how it’s all laid out. Would you be open to that? I think I forgot how you were doing what you were doing regarding the site details files. Either way though, I’m sure we’d be able to use it then for both the route planner, the backcountry availability or likely anything else that might come along related to the campsites like possibly even front-country sites if that would be of use at all.

Let me know what you think there, but yea. One set of data would be great for sure.
Thanks Matt!

Kyle.

[FuzzySideDown]

Hey Matt.... I browsed through some of your camp details files to get a feel for what all you had there. I think you might have more than you think perhaps, if i was looking at them right. I counted about 22 separate site files plus a slew of corresponding images. That's awesome!

I'm still leaning towards building an interface over the data though if you are cool with that, as manually maintaining all of those files individually could become quite time consuming over time. I think it would be great to utilize what you have though as gathering the data could be one of the bigger hurdles and you've got quite a bunch already put together. That'll be a big help for sure!

[mattB]

The Details files I created were just html files. I did them each by hand.
It would be a lot better if we used a database for the information and just generated the details files.
The RoutePlanner just builds a file name based on the campsite 3 letter name. and it assumes the Details file are in a "camp_details" directory on the same directory as the Planner file.
But it could be easily changed to point to a common directory.

So for Stoney Indian Camp, it does a window.open("camp_detail/STO.htm");

[mattB]

Way back when, I was trying to gather data and information about different camps from people on the Chat Group. Some of it was info and pictures people sent to me, and some of it I poached from Trip Reports..
The stuff I have should be a good starting point, although some of the comments may be out of date now...

[FuzzySideDown]

Ahh very cool. I’ll work on putting something together. It should be easy to use with the route planner I would think. Thanks Matt.

[FuzzySideDown]

A preliminary version of a backcountry campsite details section can be found in the "Extras" section in the menu up top, or by going to the following link...

https://glacier.nationalparkschat.com/web/campsite

Matt, the link format I currently have using the campsite 3 letter code looks like this....

https://glacier.nationalparkschat.com/w ... w?code=ELL

Hopefully that should work well with your route planner. Let me know if there might be any issues with that.

Note: it's an early version, yet, so if anything looks wonky or something looks to be missing that you'd like to see, let me know... Plus there's probably only 4 sites filled in yet, but more to come....

Thanks!
Cheers!

Kyle....

[mattB]

I'll take a look at the Route Planner. It is just making a JavaScript "window.open" call..

so like this: window.open("campsiteDetails/ELL.htm");

Assuming that the campsiteDetails directory was on the same level as where the RoutePlanner was located...

I notice in the code there is an attempt to use
window.open("http://mattb.drizzlehosting.com/campsiteDetails/ELL.htm");
but its commented out. Not sure if I removed it because it didn't work, or just when I migrated from Drizzle to the GlacierChatter web host site...

I tried just putting that link into a browser on my laptop and it popped up the new file just fine...
So I'm guessing that if I just change the RoutePlanner to use that link with the specific campsite TLA added to the end it should work.

[FuzzySideDown]

Awesome, yea..... you can put any site code on the end, and if it's there, it'll load, and if not, you'll still get a page, but it wont have much on it.... but it wont error out.... That sounds good....