Celia Peterson and Jensen Douillard are close to mile 300 on the Pacific Crest Trail as they fight the biting sand and heavy winds. Hopeful for the hot springs ahead, they are warding off the prick of the Southern California Desert.

“I feel like I needed this to be pushing myself,” Peterson said on Thursday, April 24 from the town of Idyllwild, Calif, an unincorporated town of 3,000 with a labrador for a mayor near the San Jacinto Wilderness. “We’re hiking everyday, camping and packing, but it is cool how everything is so different everyday.”