Conceptual Outline
Each April, after completeing the spring semester at college / university I have gone on a camping trip. The location has been Tofino, British Columbia because it is the closest and most familiar place to go surfing. This April I will be graduating from Simon Fraser University and I had hoped, for a change, to go somewhere where a wetsuit was not a necessity...Mexico. But due to the uncertanty about my van's reliabilty, getting time off work / finding a job, and not having very much money, my girlfriend and I decided to go to Oregon. Niether of us have been to Oregon, but we have both wanted to for a long time. Having absolutely no idea about where to camp and where to surf in Oregon, I decided to do a Multy Critera Evaluation of where to camp on the West Coast of Oregon.
First I narrowed my search down to campgrounds on, or very close to the pacific Ocean (there are hundreds and hundreds of campgronds in Oregon).
The constraints I wanted use to find a campground were:
- Is the campground on the ocean - If not it is unsuitable
- Does the campground allow dogs - If not it is unsuitable
- Are the campsites paved - If they are, they are unsuitable (I also considered factors for places that I would not want to camp at as paved, such as in or really close to cities, if they were attracted by off road vehicle enthuseists, on an old army base, cabins only, and group campsites)
- Do you have to walk into the campsite - If you do it is unsuitable
- Is the campsite over $20 US a night - If yes, than unsuitable
- Are there showers - If not. then unsuitable (in reality this is not a priority, I just added it for more constraints)
The factors I chose for the evaluation were:
- How close are the campgrounds to surf spots - 1 - 3 (1 not close, 2 fairly close, 3 really close)
- How good is the fishing - 1 - 5 (all campgrounds are close to fishing, but certain factors make them better: such as campsites on the ocean where rivers enter the ocean, or if I found specific information about crabbing. campstes on lakes got good scores, but on the ocean where a river enters gets the best score 1 (poor) - 5 (excellent) because that is what i am looking for.
- Are there hiking trails - All campground in the analysis had some form of hiking, the ones on the beach got higher scores and higher scores were also given for alot of hiking trails in the area. Campgrounds near cities or towns got a low score because they are close to a city / town and also because there just in not much hiking around them (other than the beach).
- Are the campsites forested (I use the term trees in the analysis) - 1 - 3 (1 if not much tree cover, 3 if there is). A treed campsite is necessary because it will probaly be raining in April and we will have to tie tarps to trees to shelter the picknic table and lawnchairs from the rain. Also the trees provide privacy, after all we are going to relax.
- Are the campgrounds located in the North, Central or South Coast - 1 (lowest) - 3 (highest) 1 for South, 2 for central, 3 for North
Campgrounds
Fort Stevens
Oswald West
Nehalan Bay
Cape Lookout
Devil's Lake
Beverly Beach
South Beach
Beachside
Carl G. Washburn
Baker Beach
Alder Dune
Sutton
Jesse M. Honeyman
Driftwood II
Umpqua Lighthouse
William M. Tugman
Sunset Bay
Bullards Beach
Cape Blanco
Humbug Mountain
Harris Beach
Loeb