Camping guru come to town
Karen Peterson
David Woodbury stops in a Diamond S RV Park and Campground on the 19th day of his 107-day camping journey to promote his camping website, Camp Native, raise money for kids to go camping and bring attention to the benefits of camping.
Karen Peterson
Karen Peterson
Karen Peterson
Karen Peterson
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RONAN – David Woodbury is riding his bike across nine states to bring attention to the benefits of camping, raise money for kids to go camping, and promote his camping website.
On Friday, he stopped in at the Diamond S RV Park and Campground at 46711 Old U.S. Highway 93 to pitch a tent for the night on his 19th day into 107 days of camping. He plans to travel 4000 miles and stop in 82 towns.
Photographer Cody Wiseman drove ahead of Woodbury in a modified van with extra large tires to handle rocky terrain to drop off the camping gear and take photos of different campsites along the way.
“I drop off the gear so he can travel light,” Wiseman said.
The project started a few years ago when Woodbury went camping with his family in Minnesota and couldn’t find a place to camp.
“Everything was full,” he said. “We ended up camping in a picnic shelter. We couldn’t even find a hotel that wasn’t booked.”
The trip left him feeling frustrated, so he decided to come up with a solution for future trips.
He put together a team of people and started what is now called Camp Native. He came up with the name after deciding that camping was symbolic of how people lived a long time ago.
And now, he is traveling around the western United States with his pit crew of one to document as many tent sites and RV park resorts as possible. He hasn’t hooked up with the Forest Service yet but hopes to add that in one day. For a fee, people can log onto the site and reserve a place to go camping to prevent any trip mishaps.
Woodbury also added a fundraiser to the project called Ride with Woody to help 100 under-resourced kids in the United States go camping through a program called Big City Mountaineers. More information can be found at ridewithwoody.com.
Woodbury plans to pedal around Flathead Lake and then head west toward Idaho.
Diamond S RV Park owners Desiree and Rick Sinclair were excited to be part of the project and find their business on the website.
“I was surprised they were coming here,” Desiree said.
Rick said he thinks the site is a good idea. He recommends people get reservations any way they can for camping sites.
“We’ve been booked up all summer,” he said.
He added that when people come in and the campsites are all full he tries to find them another site down the road. “Everything is full,” he said. “Gas prices are about the same this year compared to last year, so I don’t know why, but we’ve been really busy. People are camping a lot this year.”
The Sinclairs celebrated their two-year anniversary in business on Aug. 14. They wanted to get into the camping business 20 years ago when their kids were young, but couldn’t find the perfect place to buy until two years ago. “We looked everywhere,” he said.
Rick said the kids are all grown now but he still enjoys the camping business. “We’ve got 23 RV sites and six tent sites,” he said. “It keeps us busy.”
