[pct-l] campo bus, guide-map vs text

["Joanne Lennox" <goforth@cio.net>]

I note that the bus arrives at 5 pm at Campo.  There is not lodging listed.
It probably takes an hour to walk to the border, do border amenities and
return to Campo.  Start hiking from Campo about 6 pm, then that puts you in
Hauser Canyon about nightfall, just the place and time to get in between
the illegals-border patrol, coyote battle.  What to do?  Is there a place
to Camp in Campo and not be hazzled by locals or mugged by the border
patrol, coyotes, or illegals? I've heard that Morena CAmpground is just 6
miles down the road, but can't imagine walking an extra 12 miles so that I 
can get to the same place by walking another 20 miles on the PCT.  What
have others done?

I had thought about starting from Campo on the first of April which it
turns out is the Thursday(Maundy Thursday?) before good Friday.  I am now
thinking about March 29, 30 at the beganning of that same week to avoid the
Easter Crowd. Semana Santa (Easter Week) is a very big holiday in Mexico
and I figure that there will be a lot of illegal traffic going home for
Easter the week before Easter, and then returning the week after.  Do
illegals just walk back into mexico from the US, if so then there shouldn'
t be too much problem the week before and the week of Semana Santa(whenever
that is).  Unless there are illegals trying to be with their families in
the U.S.  Does anybody out there have a sense of when the illegal-border
guard battle heats up, how it ebbs and flows around Easter?

An unrelated issue, but one that I can't  get past just yet.  I can"t seem
to read the guidebook.  A couple pages just stops me in my tracks. When I
read that Bill Stenzel thought the guidebook was such I great read, I was
stunned! I read a lot of books.  I am a slow but intrepid reader who
probably polishes off 50 books a year.  I have never really used
guidebooks, except for climber's guides and often only give them a cursory
read.  I figure I'll just wait until I am standing on the trail and hope
that the text carries me forth from there.

OTOH, I love maps. I spent many hours of my childhood pouring over maps. My
becoming a climber was greatly enhanced by my discovery of topographical
maps.  I was very disappointed when the USGS stopped the l5 minute map
series.  It cost a fortune to own all the 61/2 minute maps required to
cover the same territory that the 15' ones did. Most trips that I take I
plan by only looking a maps.  I am so glad that the maps are in the book,
but it drives me crazy that they are so unrelated to the text (major
waypoints and mileage points are not labelled on the maps), it is often is
impossible without reading lots of text to find out where on the map you
are (text can be a few pages removed from the map in front or behind), in
some cases the PCT going North is right to left and in other cases it is
left to right, the direction is unlabeled, the fact that everything on the
maps is in grey(except for the heavy black line of the PCT) means that all
the details and names are almost illegible except for a myoptic few, and
the fact that they are only pieces of l5 minute maps, prevents one getting
a sense of the surrounding country.  Because of these factors, I have spent
most of my guidebook time with a magnifying lens peering at the maps(I will
be taking one, it already has it's own little red fleece jacket). It is
discouraging that I seem to retain so little of what I read and see in the
guidebook.

kThe elevation profiles in the data book, the elevations given in the data
book , and Craig Giffens planning guide is a tremendous help.  But I think
that I am going into this trip with less sense of the country than any
other trip.

Therefore , I was very happy to hear of Toms project. Although I don't know
how many maps I could carry without raiseing weight considerations.  I am
fine once I get to the Sierras, its the stretch from Campo to Kennedy
meadows that I can't seem to relate to.

Peace, Gofforth
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