She explains that the village leaders brought the people here in 1950 during a period of war. It was hidden and safe from the turmoil rocking Xinjiang at the time. It is indeed secluded.

We collect another bag of biscuits, and Brice goes to the post office while I fill the water bladders from the official's supply -- delicious mountain water. We rendezvous at the general store to stock up on more food: big cookie-like things and lots of candy. We also wait for the post office to open, watching a camel-mounted postal worker arrive shortly after we do.

By now it is getting to be late morning, so we decide to wait for the canteen to open, and take advantage of a big bowl of noodles we can get there. While there, an old woman offers to bring us steamed buns to take on the road. We latch onto the idea and ask for ten of them. We set off at 1 pm but make good time.

About 10k down the way, 5 or 6 camels lay in the road, sunbathing. They take their time getting up, the last one doing so only when judging that we are not going to stop. We get back to highway 313 and start the daring journey west into the Lop Nor Desert.

I am so charged up I can barely stand the excitement of it. What a great adventure: heading into the unknown, but full of confidence, and hardened with experience and some of the best equipment imaginable. The bikes are strong and light carbon-fibre models made by GIANT in Taiwan.

They are suspended in front (RockShox "Judy" DH on mine, a Japanese set on Brice's) and have bullet-proof Shimano Deore LX components. My rear rim is a tried-and-tested Mavic 217. Our tyres are Tioga "Psycho" and Cheng Shin "Maxxis," both of which have been rock-solid all the way from Xi'an. Both mechanically and physically, we feel strong. The downsides are Brice's headset -- it hasn't been tested in difficult conditions since being replaced in Xi'an -- and rear rim, a Mavic 234, which has proven itself less-than-adequate under tough conditions. As for clothing, Mountain Equipment of the UK has provided us with Marathon-I down sleeping bags, Ron Hill Aquabloc jackets, Ron Hill cycling shorts, Duofold polypropylene tops and Ultrafleece tops and trousers. It is all top-rate equipment. Sure enough, the road into Xinjiang is totally unmaintained, constantly severed by deep washouts and occasionally covered with sand that we can't cycle through. Even pushing the bikes through it is difficult. But I am pumped, charging hard across the desert road. It comes upon a derelict structure left to rot out here -- typical of the many "towns" marked on the map: nothing but a decayed shell of a house.

At one point in the late afternoon I turn around to check out where we've come from, and am stunned with the distance one can see out here. Incredible! The whole expanse of desert unfolds before me, lined up against the Qilian Mountains. Nightfall comes at km marker 408 -- we expect the shepherds at 412. So we eat a bit. Despite our intense hunger, we eat modestly, just to play it safe: steamed bun, biscuit, cookie and candy.

If we had examined the map more carefully, we wouldn't have been so surprised to find that the road climbs into the mountains, following a dry river bed -- too sandy and rocky to ride on, especially by moonlight. So we push the bikes km after km.

"I'm at the end of my rope," Brice says, though not insisting we stop. I also think we might as well call it a day ... there are no signs of any shepherds or the run-down buildings the old man told us to expect. We find a sandy rut up a ravine, but the wind eventually blows down it, just as hard as in the dry river bed. Very cold. I do not sleep much at all.

Day 64 October 11, 1995 We get up and pack our stuff. Pushing on, we see the 412 marker. Three km further we run into the shepherds! There we have a water source but filter only a little water for fear of contamination from the sheep -- 300 of them. The shepherds tell us they only stay there from September to November, then return to Nan An Ban. They say they've never been on the road west of there ... so off we go. It is a tough climb. Major stone washouts and land slides ... tough going. "This road is going to take us forever," one of us says. We guess we have 120 km to Xorkol -- based on what the locals said and the fact that it appeared on all three maps. Before noon, the mile markers change shape and mileage numbers, leaving us to wonder if we are even still on 313. By noon we begin ascending a series of endless plateau bowls. The views are stunning. We're way up in the mountains now. But it's mid-day, so we don't consider what night will bring. We are just enjoying ourselves, every horizon bringing something entirely new. One thing we find odd are the number of graves along the road. At least, we speculate they are graves. The place is incredibly desolate -- not even a hint of something green. But the barrenness makes for quite a spectacle. By late afternoon the winds kick up in the most violent manner, making cycling almost impossible. They blow giant gales of dust across our path, covering the entirety of some bowls. At times we lose the road in all the chaos, desperate to find it again. The bowls repeat themselves, one after another after another. Eventually, we learn to be too comfortable with losing the road down in the bowl: just go forward to the next horizon, and the narrow corridor will assure the road will be there waiting. Brice cycles ahead each time to capture the dirt storms on film; they are incredible. With the winds accelerating, dusk brings COLD temps. The question is: should we push the bikes through the night in order to stay warm, or go to ground? There isn't any shelter up here. It is hard to answer -- neither of us is too excited about the former option, but we also know we will freeze if we lay still in the wind all night. I offer to check out a gully below us. It is an embankment of a dry stream, and maybe can serve as a shelter. I am fascinated by all the camel bones strewn about the area. I ask Brice to have a look at the embankment. We decide we can hollow out a notch in the bottom of it and be somewhat protected from the wind. I do not sleep much though I am, just barely, warm enough in the bag with all my clothes on.

Day 65 October 12, 1995 Morning brings incredibly clear sky and bright landscape. Snap a picture of our camp site. Temperature is rising. Check out camel bones scattered all around us. Take a close-up picture of one for my father. While answering nature's call, I notice a sinister dark-blue cloud looming over a mountain to our north. It is threatening and terrifying. I walk back and point it out to Brice. "If that thing opens up on us, it won't be rain," I speculate. "It'll be snow." Not even sixty seconds later it is over the mountain and spreading its evil tentacles over us and the plateau. Seconds later, snow begins to fall... fast and hard.

With the sun obliterated, the temperature plummets. I freak out. "We're not prepared for this!" I yell. "Don't panic, man!" Brice responds. "Let's get going." We make haste to pack up and get on the bikes, knowing we have to get the blood circulating if we want to get any feeling back in our fingers and toes; they are numb, and I think about all the cases of frostbite I'd seen and read about, having grown up in Colorado. We put our cycling pants on our heads under our helmets, and socks on our hands. Getting on the bikes helps, and feeling comes back to the toes. The road and surrounding area is covered with snow. The clouds part by noon, and I feel ecstatic: "I'm keeping my toes and fingers!" I think to myself. I hop off the bike and gave my middle finger to the treacherous elements swirling above. "Fuck you!" I scream with a charged, defiant emotion. "Fuck you! We made it!" I feel immortal. "Don't do that, man!" Brice says, thinking it foolish to declare victory so soon and tempt fate. But according to our bicycle computer, we merely have to cycle another 60 kilometres to reach Xorkol; so I feel ready to celebrate.

The clear skies don't last long. As it did the day before, the wind picks up ferociously. Here we struggle to even stay upright on the cycles; sometimes it is faster to get off and push. The sun shines on and off, but the winds never fail, and the temperature is low indeed. We cycle with most of our gear on -- including cycling shorts on our heads. In awe of the evidence of vast springtime mud flows in the bowls, we stop for pictures of kilometre markers nearly covered in earth -- comparing buried ones to full-size ones. As the day wears on, we close in on the 60-kilometre threshold, as recorded on the bicycle computer. Excitement brims in our voices. We are ready for a meal and shelter, and we've gained altitude all day. "It should be just over that next horizon!" we speculate, referring to the town Xorkol. That horizon brings nothing but the disappointment of another kilometre-long bowl, alive only with sheets of wind-driven dust. We make an allowance for the discrepancy between the map and the bicycle computer. "The cyclometer is just a few clicks off," we reassure ourselves.

After several more kilometres, more bowls and no hint of humanity, the expression of heightened expectation gradually leaves our faces, replaced by a grim foreboding. We've eaten the majority of our provisions -- as planned -- and drank a lot of our water supply. We need that town. It represents our salvation.

"Look around, man," Brice says. "There isn't going to be any town up here." The words are blasphemy. In my refusal to accept such an outcome, I resent his outlook and put it down to alarmism. But Brice sees there will be no salvation up here at 3,000 metres, and looks ahead to some possible ramifications. "My dad is a park ranger," he says. "He's pulled corpses out of situations like this before. Well, there are no park rangers up here! Nobody knows we're here! There isn't any registration book up here." Refusing to accept such a reality, I try to argue that he is wrong -- the place will probably be just over the "next horizon."

By 3:30, we cross a horizon that reveals a glimmer of a structure in the far distance. "That must be the outskirts of Xorkol!" I exclaim. "Look at that structure!"

In stiff winds, uphill and with flagging energy, we press forward full of hope, but gradually realize it isn't going to be much of a structure. "Oh, man," Brice says. "I don't want to die up here. I've got too much left to do! I've got a Fulbright. Leanne. Mick. It's way too early."

We reach the structure: a collapsed house, yet again. Its walls and roof are collapsed; trash and even clothes are strewn about. I take the opportunity to answer nature's call. Emerging from a corner of the house, I am grabbed by Brice's words. "I think this is it, man," he says. "See that road?" he asks, pointing to a faint track leading south from us, directly to the mountains. "It's right here on the map -- a junction at Xorkol." He is right. "Notice how the road (313 -- our road) swings north a little bit ahead?" he asks, comparing the map to what we can see of the road west of us. His analysis is hard to fault, difficult as it might be to accept.

"Maybe," I say. "But maybe it's just over that next horizon? Anyway, we've got to check. Can you imagine how cold it's going to be tonight? Why spend the night here if there's shelter and food just a few kilometres away? We've got enough daylight left to at least go check." He agrees, and we set off uphill for the next ridge. It is tough going -- low energy, high winds. There are a number of false summits. Disappointment after disappointment. Under these circumstances, you cannot suffice with a 50-metre horizon -- you want to go on until you get a view of the big picture. But the reality is beginning to sink in, and I begin to reassess the chances of finding something over the "next horizon."

Guessing that we may end up stuck with three more days of cycling -- without food -- my mind turns to conservation of energy. "There's no need for both of us to check this out," I tell Brice. I want to save as many calories as possible. "Why don't I cycle ahead? I'll come back and tell you what I find." Brice reluctantly agrees, and I press forward. False horizon follows false horizon. I reach a horizon just to find it lead to another horizon -- not a view. Each time I say to myself, "Okay -- that next horizon is the last horizon I'm cycling to -- just one more!" and each time, I'd break that pledge and cycle to another. But the sun is plunging behind the mountains, just off to the left. Dominating the scene in that direction is a huge, white, cold mountain summit. The sun takes a frozen colour in its presence. As the afternoon retains less and less light, the wind picks up, freezes, and blows stronger in my face.

I have to collect every ounce of willpower I can muster to find the energy to move the bike forward to the next horizon. "Please, God," I plead. "Let there be a town up here!" I start doing deals. "If there's a town up here, I will be the most ardent spreader of your word. I will be irreversibly aware of your greatness. I will come back to the flock!"

It dawns on me that I've been separated from Brice for over an hour. "Might he suspect I've abandoned him?" I wonder. I've got more water than he does. "Could he think that I think, 'Only one of us is going to survive -- it's going to be me'?" With these ugly thoughts occurring to me, and the cold chilling my body, I want to turn around and cycle downhill to Brice immediately, the wind at my back. I look ahead: 100 or so meters to the next horizon. "One more horizon," I say.

That horizon reveals a wide expanse of high-altitude plain, bordered on the far edge by a soaring chain of mountains, covered in white. The road disappears into the plain; how it will pass through that range of mountains is beyond me. But one thing is clear: there are no towns up here. It is a scene of frozen hell, and, for us, a sure road to ruin. I don't need much time to ponder it, and the frozen wind urges me to make haste. I turn the bike around and bomb down the road, covering great distances in fleeting moments.

Closer to the bottom, I spot Brice on his bike, heading uphill toward me. He has been carefully studying the maps, but was chilled to the bone just sitting there, and had to get on the bike to stay warm. I reach him in jig time. "That way's suicide!" I scream to him over the gale-force winds. "Nothing but higher mountains and snow! We've got to go back to that house for the night, and head south on that road in the morning!" He takes my word for it, and we bomb back to the destroyed husk of a house, with light fading fast.

It is too cold to do anything but get immediately into the bags, but first we have to find protection from the wind. We pick out a wall, and start clearing the debris underneath it. Included are full sets of discarded clothing and even shoes. Just beyond the walls are several graves, mounds of rock, some of them obviously quite shallow and hastily dug. Whereas the day before they presented a curiosity, they are now a horrid scene. We clear out the space and put our plastic sheet down and then our sleeping bags, and get in. Every piece of clothing is on, and it is still cold. Brice recommends dropping the Ultrafleece trousers a little lower around the waist in order to use the bottom of the legs to wrap around the feet. It works. Without question, we owe our lives to the Ultrafleece gear and sleeping bags. Though I've hardly slept in two days, I can't sleep now, either. We have a lot of thinking to do. We assess our circumstances.

--> Are we really where we think we are? i.e. is the map right? Even if it is, are we still on 313? The road markers totally switched before noon the previous day; and they disappear altogether beyond this structure. How can we count on the fact we are even on the right road?

--> The road south is a giant question mark. If the road we looked at was the one on the map, it ostensibly would link-up with the main route through the region, about 40 kilometres south of us. Surely, we could find traffic on that road. The sinister aspect is the fact that the road seemed to practically disappear when it hits the mountain slope to our south; we spotted only a little fragment of it on the hillside. What if there really isn't a road up there -- or one so marginal that we lose it -- and wind up wandering hopelessly in the Altun Mountains? If the lack of food and water don't kill us, the weather will.

--> The road west seemingly leads to peril. I have seen the high mountains and snow covering them. If we go that direction, we won't necessarily be able to survive a night up there.

We discuss these things and tentatively decide to go south -- it seems like the quickest way out, and it won't put us up against the horror I've seen on the higher plain the day before; that is a mental obstacle I can scarcely overcome.

As I listen to Brice snore, I go over the options again in my head, waiting to hear a movement to indicate he is awake, or semi-awake. Before dawn, he rustles, and I take the opportunity. "Brice. I've been thinking. Why don't we just cycle back east to the shepherds? We know the way; there will be no surprises. Sure, we'd have to spend another night out, but we could be there in two days. And the wind would be at our backs. And it would be downhill. But most importantly, it would mean almost certain survival."

I personally don't prefer this option -- going east -- I favour going south. It's not that I have a death wish; I just think we can get out of this predicament without having to backtrack. I never doubted that we could survive for several days without food -- the limiting factor was water, and we still have enough for three days with strict rationing.

Brice also doesn't like the eastern option. He can't bear the idea of going all the way back. What it would cost us in time and effort was unthinkable. It would mean going all the way back to Aksay and west on the main route -- 315. But there's no way we can afford such a detour time-wise, so it would require putting us and the bikes on a bus from Aksay to Ruoqiang in Xinjiang, the first sizable town on our current route. That's not the way we travel.

Since neither of us favours going east, the choice is south or west.

The key question: which of the several "towns" marked on the map are real? Brice had studied the maps carefully that afternoon as I cycled to the last horizon. He observes the following about the route west -- assuming we are actually on route 313:

--> In 60 kilometres, the road will rise to a 3,300-metre pass and thereafter quickly lose elevation, dropping back down to the Lop Nor Desert.

--> One map indicates we'll hit a water spring at 90 kilometres; this map has correctly indicated the water spring at the shepherds.

--> Though there are many towns indicated on the maps, the nearest living town is going to be in the desert, either: Ruoqiang, a sure bet judging from its size on the map, reachable in four days; or Miran, reachable in three days. One map indicates a site of archaeological interest at Miran, and all the maps show a stream that feeds the oasis, raising the chances that it is a living oasis. Hence, going west will mean salvation in at most four days, and perhaps in three.

The down-side is what I saw the day before: the mountains. Will the pass be snowed-in? Can we cross it and descend a considerable distance down the other side in one day? We can't afford to be caught up there at nightfall.

--> Going south could mean salvation in as little as 40 kilometres -- where that route will intersect the main route, 315, according to the map. The down-side is the road, which looked damned sketchy from here. Can we trust it?

This discussion is all based on Brice's recollection of the maps, since it is still pitch dark and impossible to check the maps. They will be consulted at first light, and we'll have to take another gander at the road south, and make a call. Either way, time will be of the essence.

Brice presses the illuminator on his wristwatch: 5:30 am. We lay in our bags, shivering and waiting for dawn.