We rate campsites while on family trips for future coming-back reference. Not “star ratings”, but scored on seven different criteria that are important on summer family trips, each criteria rating earns 1, 2 or maximum 3 points on our scale:
Tent Capacity. One tent, two tents, three of more tents. We need space for three tents on family trips.
Landing Ease & Canoe Space – Four solo canoes to unload , carry up, flip over somewhere on shore for the night.
Views and Water Proximity – We all enjoy a water-view breeze, and don’t need to bushwhack gear 200 yards to camp.
Bugginess – Summer trips. We don’t use a screen house. Nuff said.
Swimming Potential – My wife and sons prefer freshwater to chlorine, and will spend much of the day swimming.
Site Wanderability – Hiking or just taking a stroll from camp can be important. Please do wander off and leave me in quiet.
Sun & Shade – The only rating that is scored 1 or 2 points. The missus needs sun, I need shade; 1 point for one (unacceptable) option, 2 points for a combination.
The cumulative possible point total, times 5, would equal a “perfect” site, six 3’s, and a sun/shade max 2, times five, would equal 100%.
We each rate the criteria individually, compare notes and, after some discussion (and occasionally minor democratic, majority rules debate), arrive at a final agreed upon 1-2-3 score for each criteria. More discussion than debate; our individual rankings have always been very close. We have gone back and re-rated sites on later trips; no site has yet changed more than 5% on revisitation.
OK, we are not just doing site evalluations for future reference; stopping at unoccupied sites for a ratings looksee and discussion quickly became an enjoyable family tradition. Scoring every single site on Little Tupper, Rock Pond and Round Lake took a few years, but we were eager for that challenge. Other places too.
There are, so far, no pure nirvana 100’s. But we have found a bunch of delightful 90’s and 95’s. Other tripper’s site preference criteria might be very different from those family desires; “Privacy”, “Quietude”, Pristine-ness” or “Aloneness”. “Firewood availability” or “Portage” remarks. Whatever floats your boat to an A+ site.
Someone else might be able to remember each and every specific about different sites over the years of hazy memory. I’m not that someone; I can’t remember what I had for lunch yesterday. I have recently been struck, when going back to places I hadn’t visited in some years, about how different the actual appearance was from the (sometimes enhanced) image I held in memory.
Yeah, yeah, all of those site rating criteria are on a spreadsheet, with macros for the Total Score and Perfect Score. If I go out solo tripping, or go off-season, I can extrapolate the score for my single tent, single canoe, or for cold weather no swimming/no bugs evaluation.
A site rating record also depends on where. In places with an abundance of possible sites an annotated map and some handy printed reference reminder is convenient. On long downriver trips sometimes more than just convenient. “Hey, wait, just above that last fastwater back there, wasn’t that the awesome spot where we stopped 3 years ago?”. Nice spot, oops, too late now, carry on.