As The Crow Flies

From the San Diego airport, take the #992 bus to America Plaza, downtown. Bus #992 pickups from both terminals and runs every 10 minutes, during the week. Pay 2. 50 and ask for a transfer that will get you to EL Cajon Transit Center–exact change. Takes 10 minutes.

At the America Plaza, take the Trolley-Orange line going to El Cajon Transit Center. The trolley leaves every 15 minutes. Your bus transfer will get you on free. 50 minutes.

At the El Cajon Transit Center, take the Southeast Rural Bus #894 to Campo. Currently there is no weekend service. Leaves El Cajon transfer station, on weekdays, at 9:10am, 4:10pm, 5:20pm and gets to Campo at 10:53am, 5:58pm, and 7:03pm. Cost 10.00.

It is recommended but not required that you make reservation for the bus ride from El Cajon Transit Center to Campo, Bus #894. To make your reservations call 1-800-858-0291. The Metropolitan Transit system recommends making them at least a day in advance. Yogi, in the PCT Handbook, recommends making them 2 weeks in advance. The bus’s links are to the current schedules.

For more information go to http://www.sdcommute.com/ Or call 1-800-266-6883

There are some new maps out, of the PCT (Pacific Crest Trail). So far just Southern California and Northern Washington. I wanted to buy one. At the pcta.org site it cost 19.31, total. REI sells it too, they sell it for a total price of 25.49. But if you go to the National Forest Store the same map only cost 10.00 dollars, free shipping, no tax. They sell lots of other maps too, of course.

Update: I got my map…. this thing is so durable you could use it as a place mat. One map weighs 6.3 ounces… too much to bring on a long hike.

I was turned on to this system from reading the PCT-O7 yahoo group. These purifiers quickly remove bacteria and virus. They treat 3000 gallons– more if you back flush it. You can filter three ways: inline gravity feed which yields 5 gallons in 30 minutes, or sit on the bag and get it even faster, hook it up to a faucet and get it at 40 psi, or fill up the bottle and just drink. It says that there is no hard sucking involved.

I’m having a hard time getting more information on these. The inline filter weighs 6 oz, I believe, but I don’t know about the bottle filter. Aqua Mira– what I use– weighs 3 oz but only treats 30 gallons and that’s if you don’t accidentally not get the cap on tight. The biggest problem I have with Aqua Mira is running out of it on the trail.

On the PCT (Pacific Crest Trail) and the Appalachian the water is usually good and I didn’t feel I needed to treat much of my water, except in the desert, but on the Florida trail and at least the New Mexico section of the CDT (Continental Divide Trail) I was finding I needed to treat most of the water and ran out of Aqua Mira in the middle of nowhere and had to drink the cow spit straight up; it would be nice to have a water treatment that would last the whole trail, as I don’t like being bound to mail drops for my supplies.

Here is a link with more information http://www.sawyerproducts.com/viral.htm They are sold through http://www.justdrink.net/

Update:  I bought it and so far have not gotten it to work.  Read my review here