Honestly, I think the nudist camp sounds like a fantastic idea.
Here's why:
1) She's with a peer group.
2) She's near family.
3) She's less likely to be near predators.
1) Idaho is not like Hawaii. Idaho gets cold. Nudist camps in equatorial/tropical regions can run mostly nude most of the time. As proved by the local and historical tribes who have or do, and by the hot & not-so-hot bodies that tilt their head toward mainstream culture by wearing thongs & nipple band-aid bikinis... at least a fraction of an inch. Snow, cold, and ice, however, will bring on warm clothes. Otherwise the commune would have frozen to death their first winter. Your friend and her daughter will undoubtedly follow suit.
I've known very few people who've lived in nudist colonies. The only common thread amongst them is this: They all wear clothes outside of the colony. It may only be a nod of the head towards the dominant culture, but it's a nod of the head, nonetheless. Which you friend has NOT been doing. Mostly though, the people in these communes are quite strong in their beliefs concerning following the law (hence setting up an environment where they will not be breaking the law). Being in a peer group that takes social norms into account (even if they laugh at them) will undoubtedly foist some of itself onto your friend. I would be very much surprised if her daughter was not actually wearing clothes more AFTER she starts living in the colony, because it will no longer be a way for mum to rebel, but common sense. Having a peer group tends to reinforce/reinstate a lot of common sense.
That your friend has this strong conviction, & that she's found a safe and legal way to follow it, actually shows quite a bit of latent common sense.
2) Being near family can be a blessing or a curse, depending on your family. It sounds like your friend either a) wants to be able to be close to mum or b) is using this as a weapon. I'm going to assume the former, because it's easier & more common. She could very well have chosen a nudist colony in Hawaii, or Costa Rica, but no. Instead she essentially moves "home", and finds a colony close to mum. Why? PROBABLY because they have a good relationship, or she wants to work on building one. Which is a good thing.
Any group of people have the potential to be dangerous, cruel, &/or monumentally stupid. Because they DO reinforce each other. Think cults & kool-aid, or Neo-nazi's, or certain governments. They also have the potential to be wonderful reaffirming places, where people form life long friendships based on mutual blah blah blah. By placing herself in a peer-group near mum, your friend is holding out a reservation. An "if this place isn't the place I think it is... I have a safe loving place to run to", kind of reservation. Not an EASY place to run to, certainly. Nowhere where people are going to say "told you so" is an easy place to go. But your friend is placing her family within arm's reach. Smart.
3) Small groups, in addition to being self reaffirming, are also highly self monitoring. There's no getting around nudity = sex in this culture. There just isn't. We live it, and breath it, and absorb it through our pores. Otherwise none of us would care if we wore anything in 105 heat. No one would care if children ran around naked or adults ran around half naked. But we do. If on a particularly hot day I took off my shirt while walking down the street, I would get picked up by the police for "indecent exposure". I could be walking between 1 friend wearing a floss bikini and a male friend in shorts and nothin' else. But I would go to jail. Heck. Even in my younger days when I was, shall we say, perky... I would have been the one to get tossed in the looney bin.
Indecent exposure is soooooooo cultural. No one here gets locked away or sent to the shrink for tests because we show our hair. Or wear pants. Or (gasp) wear clothing that shows our thighs! Yet in some other cultures we WOULD get thrown in jail for it. One of the most dignified women I know, a very devout African Muslim (who only show's her hair in the privacy of her own home), has forgotten once to put a shirt on before leaving the house. She considers our taboo against breasts baffling, because breasts are for feeding babies. "Should one hide one's silverware out in public, as well?" She follows our cultural norm to avoid problems, but she finds hiding breasts in hot weather to make as much sense as we do making sure out hair is covered all the time.
Oops... got side tracked from the self monitoring aspect of small groups. So, in this culture we can't get away from nudity = sex. This group is a product of this culture. Therefor this group is either going to be hyper-vigilant regarding their members actions towards sex & nudity ...or it's not actually a nudist colony... but a sex den. It is NOT likely to be the latter... because sex in this country is even more unpopular then nudity.
Research into sex and sexuality (which, because we equate nudity with sex always includes these types of colonies), has shown that these groups have the lowest percentage of sexual assaults/misconduct of ANY group. They tend to deal with it by quickly tossing the offending individual out.
Meanwhile, there's a level 2 sex offender who lives near my son's old bus stop who jerks off to the kids getting off the bus. He's out of the "zone" required by law, and uses a telescope... so there's nothing any of us can do. We can videotape him and send it to the police, and they can do nothing, because he's in his own house and more then the required number of feet away. In a small group, like this colony your friend is going to, he'd be out on his ear.
Now. Do I PERSONALLY agree with what your friend is doing? Nope. I think it's cuckoo. But a hundred years ago women wearing pants was cuckoo. I support her RIGHT to be a nuts as she wants, as long as she's not hurting anybody. I do think it's a fantastic option for HER, just not one for me.
One more last bit of personal stuff:
I grew up in Japan, where there are public baths. Some are coed, some are not. Do you know what a 90 year old naked woman looks like? Skin hanging from her bones, spine hunched, every joint five times the size it should be, with grey pubic hair nearly hidden by the way her stomach droops? How about when everyone about her are showing great reverence and deferential treatment instead of revulsion or clinical detachment? Or a fifty year old man with a pot belly so big he may as well be wearing a swimsuit... who is tossing every child who comes near him up into the air to splash in the pool amongst gales of laughter? Or the naked young buck being teased by his (equally naked) mother and her friends to go talk to the pretty girl he OBVIOUSLY has a thing for...And him fighting for the self control to be able to do so? He COULDN'T talk with her, until he'd put sex out of his mind. LOL, sure... a 19 year old boy who has to keep his mind pure. Not likely to happen, at least here!
I had to move back home to this country to learn that the only people who have value are the young and beautiful. The only people allowed to show skin, people who are capable of advertising for sex. Where I grew up, it was the wizened shriveled bodies that people paid homage to. It was the personality and honor of a person that mattered, not their body. The fat man who played with all the children was beloved, and not feared. No one tried to keep their children away from him because he was naked. ALL of us were naked. We were swimming. I treasure those memories through, because it showed me a depth of the human condition I have never found anywhere else. People, warts & stretchmarks & cellulite & curved spines and all.
So I can sympathize with your friend, having grown up with that background. Would I do it? Heck no. In the water, divine. In every day life? What a pain in the tukus!!