Finally made it to San Diego only to find that my bus to Campo does not run on the weekends.    Serendipitously I've found a ride to Campo that leaves tomorrow morning at 6 a.m.    I had been hoping to update this blog via email through my new phone but can't figure out how to make the damned thing work and don't have time to figure it out.   I can update with text messages --which looks like what I'll be doing for a while.  

xxx

In a huge rush today running around trying to get everything done before I leave on Wednesday.    I will be flying to Denver to visit family for a day and then on to San Diego.   Should be on the trail on the 20th or the 21st at the very latest.    That's several days earlier than planned.   Although I had hoped to get a bigger jump on it than this, I am now glad that I missed the storm on Saturday night.  

Wow, 109 mph wind speed likely incorrect, but it makes you wonder how hard the wind really is blowing.

HPWREN multicast-based weather station data display 
20120228 03:38:00 - Mt. Laguna: 32.89N 116.42W 6200' 

Air temperature = 138.2C 280.8F degrees 
Relative humidity = 94.3 percent 
Wind speed = 48.8 meter/sec 109.2 Miles/hr 
Wind direction = 188 degrees horizontal 
Barometric pressure (not altitude adjusted) = 798.0 millibar, 23.63 inHg60 
One minute rainfall = 2.3 mm/(m^2) 
Solar radiation = 0 watt/(m^2) 
Fuel stick temperature = -6999.0C -12566.2F degrees 
Fuel stick moisture = -2.4 percent
NOTE: Very high wind speeds (above 80 Mph or so) 
are likely incorrect and due to anemometer ice buildup 
under wet and freezing conditions. The built-in heater 
should eventually allow it to recover. 

snowing at mt. laguna, 45mph winds lower down, up to 60mph on the ridges.

I understand there are thunder storms in the So. Cal. mountains.   Heavy snow in Wrightwood.   Freezing levels down to 3,500 feet.   8 to 14 inches new snow. 

Hope it doesn't delay my start. 

Many ask me if I intend to mail food and supplies to myself along the way.    There  are two schools of thought on this.    I would guess that about half of the thru hikers on the PCT mail the bulk of their supplies and about half simply buy their supplies at stores as they go.    I plan on the latter method, except that I will mail food ahead to two locations:   Kennedy Meadows and Warner Springs.    I may also, at times, send supplies ahead by mail in a box (actually a bucket) which will accompany (or bounce) with me along the trail.     
 
 Those who have hiked the trail seem to agree that even if you do resupply by mail you will almost inevitably be stopping at towns for additional food, etc.    So why bother with the huge effort of shopping and mailing I ask myself?    So I will stop at towns, probably once every 4 to 6 days to resupply with food and fuel.     That's the plan. 

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to "glorify God and enjoy him forever."