Doug Lehar, father of deceased Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) hiker Trevor Laher, has teamed up with two local businesses, a manufacturer of outdoor gear, and non-profit foundation to make it easier for PCT through-hikers approaching Idyllwild to make the trip safely.

The local partners are Nomad Ventures, (the small chain of three Southern California retailers with a shop here on the Hill) and Paradise Valley Cafe. The manufacturer is Kahtoola, based in Arizona. The nonprofit is the Fowler-O’Sullivan Foundation, created to assist families of missing hikers.

In addition to Nomad and Paradise Valley are two names with tragic local connections: Trevor Laher died attempting the first icy stretch northbound PCT hikers encounter, Apache Peak here in the San Jacinto Mountains. He had ordered MICROspikes (think lighter crampons) and an ice ax, and these were waiting for him at the Idyllwild Post Office, but he did not make it that far.

The Fowler-O’Sullivan Foundation takes its name from two missing hikers, one of whom, David O’Sullivan, was last seen in Idyllwild, heading back to the PCT. The group provides liaison with vetted search groups, and all the big and little things a family might need when trying to find a missing loved one-half a world away. They, along with the Laher family, are funding the program.

The program allows PCT through-hikers to order these spikes online, receive a 20% discount, and have them delivered to the Paradise Valley Cafe at the intersection of highways 74 and 371.

Julie Jeszenka at Nomad plans to make the deliveries starting March 1. “When they place the order, they give an estimated time of [PCT hiker’s] arrival, and a few days before that we get [the spikes] delivered to Paradise. We’re thinking of how to expand availability, but right now the best way to keep track is through the website.”

Maybe in the future it could be like ordering a pizza, on demand. “We hope to get the micro spikes to the hikers before they’re caught in storms,” she added. “The whole motto of the program is ‘safety-when you need it, where you need it’.” Nomad also collects contact information for volunteer “trail angels” to provide rides and other help for hikers.

The spike project is the brainchild of Trevor Laher’s father, Doug. In an interview with the Crier, Laher told the story of his personal coming to terms with the loss of his son, and his mission.

DL: “Trevor’s birthday was last week, Feb. 12. He left to start hiking the PCT March 16, 2020, from Campo, California, and his accident took place on March 27, 2020, on Apache Peak. Trevor and I did a lot of research, but because the Apache Peak stretch had been closed for, I think six to seven years due to fire, we were not able to research that stretch as much as we would have liked. There had not been as many through-hikers on that section in the last few years..

“[Local mountaineer] Jon King and I interact regularly, and he said that the trail conditions were just perfect for what happened; a few days earlier or later it would have been a very different story.”

TC: “Are you a hiker yourself?”

DL: “I am, but not a through-hiker. Someday I might want to do the trail in Trevor’s honor. I do day hiking here in Texas, but nothing of the magnitude that Trevor was attempting. He was at school, in college. We would have frequent calls on the weekends to discuss gear, clothing, resupply strategies, etc. I told Trevor that my deal with him was that if he was going to do this and get his parents’ support, that I would be his ‘trail manager.’ When he was on the trail, I would be able to look three to four days ahead and be able to tell what he was walking into.”

TC: “That almost made it worse; bad enough if he had gone off on his own, but you were his co-pilot.”

DL: “That’s a good way to describe it. While he was out doing the walking I was back home looking at trail angel postings, a navigation app on his phone that incorporated crowdsourcing feedback, so I could see if water caches were full, if streams were running, what the camp sites looked like.”

TC: “So you and the Fowler-O’Sullivan Foundation teamed up with Kahtoola?”

DL: “I was convinced that if Trevor had had traction devices on his feet that day, he would still be with us. And so I started brainstorming with a number of people to find what we could do to address this situation. The PCT is romanticized: the movie ‘Wild,’ all these YouTube channels. But when they think of Southern California and all the desert they don’t think of the San Jacintos, and when they come within the first 200 miles of the through-hike, it catches people by surprise.

“It started for me just to raise awareness. I wrote articles, blogs, was a guest on several hiking podcasts and I started to feel as though I was exhausting those arenas, and needed to take it a step further. I needed to come up with a program beyond education, actually putting the product into hikers’ hands.

“I had conversations with the Fowler-O’Sullivan Foundation and I reached out to Nomad and asked, ‘How can we put traction devices in the hands of through-hikers before they get to Idyllwild?’

“That’s when the concept came up that my family and Fowler-O’Sullivan would fund this discount. If they order from Nomad they will deliver to Paradise Valley Cafe, they will be waiting for the hikers before they start climbing up into the San Jacs. My tagline is ‘Safety – when you need it, where you need it.’”

TC: “Did you make that up?”

DL: “I made that one up.”

TC: “It’s been a long journey.”

DL: “And hopefully, it’s not over. The greatest gift he gave me in his entire life didn’t come until after the accident, and that is to give me a life’s purpose. Now every year when hiking season starts it’s a very busy time for me but very gratifying.”

TC: “Anything else for our readers?”

DL: “Citizens of Idyllwild may not know it as much as the hiking community, but what Jon King does is amazing. He saves lives every day. People need to know that someone who lives among them does that. His trail report is called the San Jacinto Trail Report (sanjacjon.com).”

This is the full account of the program and links to an order page: http://nomadventures.com/trevor-spikes/.