Letter From the Desert: Coxcomb Mountains

It is the end, perhaps, of my tenth summer in the desert. Daytime temperatures have dipped as far as the high seventies, and the nights are even colder. It may warm up again. Or it may not. Cooling is inevitable either way. Orion rises earlier and earlier each early morning, and so do I.

Long-distance hiking season has begun, at least for those of us wh…