DESERT: Fire and Ice

When we last saw our hikers, they were just starting to get a little hot under the collar. In the desert, hikers find what shade they can and sleep off the heat of the day, saving the bulk of their hiking for when the sun goes down. But the desert also has its charms.

For those who can tough it out with the prickly pear and Joshua Trees, there is Hiker Heaven, awaiting them with open arms. The Saufleys are some of the first "trail angels" to be encountered on the trail. And they're certainly the most renowned. These kindly folks open their home to welcome in hikers covered in more than a few layers of desert dust. They provide a much-needed laundry service, offer a cool air-conditioned place to sleep, even drive thru-hikers to town or, better yet, loan them their cars!!! And they do it for the old-fashioned reason: out of the genuine goodness of their hearts.

Over the years, the Saufleys have probably hosted nearly every one of the lucky hikers who have traversed this portion of the trail. As they reminisce, we go off in search of some of those past hikers and find out where their travels took them after they got off the trail. Some went off and founded bio-diesel companies, others went on to complete the Triple Crown (hiking the Continental Divide and the Appalachian Trail in the same calendar year that they completed the Pacific Crest hike). Still others, strangers when they began, find themselves married to each other a year or two after crossing the finish line. The trail makes fast friends of what at first glance seem the most unlikely cohorts.

Perhaps it's because out here, away from the carefully guarded anonymity of cities, you come to rely on each other - for a sip of water or a morsel of food when you've let yours run too low, or for the luxury of conversation and soul searching that you seldom allow yourselves once you've left behind your college years. In the wilderness you can reinvent yourself with wild abandon. And it's in this spirit that hikers take on (or are bestowed with) trail names ­ unique, usually one- to two-word monikers that reveal something key about the person they're attributed to. At the major pit-stops - like Kennedy Meadows - where hikers convene to regroup, rethink their plans and above all to re-supply, it's not uncommon to hear news of hikers with names like "Chance" or "Batteries Included" who may have started out with "Flyin' Brian" and "Tapeworm." but are now 2-3 days behind.

Kennedy Meadows is significant for a number of reasons. It marks the end of the desert. And the beginning of real elevation. It's true, over the past 700 miles we've gone from the lowest valley of 1200 feet to a high point of 9000 feet, but up ahead...well, can you say Alpine Arctic climate zone? If they've done their homework, hikers have sent ahead the complete change of gear they'll be needing as they leave the desert behind and head up into the "hills."

Here they'll be donning crampons and wielding ice axes. But at least there will be no more worries about water. Should be plenty of snow to melt for drinking. Frankly, they'll be wishing they had figured out how to bottle that desert heat. Whether they're "post-holing" their way through waist deep snowdrifts that sometimes obscure the trail for miles at a time or stacking rocks as windbreaks, this is where things start to get really interesting.