The sun was just touching the rocks far above camp near the pass when I woke. Out across the Wind River valley, the Absaroka Range was tinted red. I hauled down my food bag and the other's as well, then moved out into the meadow for coffee and breakfast and the very important work of watching the sunrise.

The wind had completely died down and the meadow was absolutely still. A mid-sized bird flew overhead and I could hear every wing beat. I enjoyed the stillness and brought my journal up to date, but mostly I just enjoyed being, existing in that meadow on the last morning of our trip.

When the sun worked its way down, first touching the tips of the trees, then finally the tents, the others began to stir. I enjoyed a second breakfast with everyone else, finishing the last of my coffee and granola. With no more coffee left, it was definitely time to return to civilization. A shower and clean clothes, pizza and beer actually sounded really good.

By 10:30 we were on the move. Going down the switchbacks to East Torrey Creek we ran into a father and son from London out to climb Gannett. They saw the snow picket on my pack, and worried that they didn't bring enough climbing hardware.

We stopped at the site of our first water break on the hike in alongside East Torrey Creek almost exactly 7 days later. From here we started seeing more people, a few backpackers but more horse packers. As we neared the bridge over the creek, we even caught up with some day hikers, who were surprised we passed them as heavily loaded as we still were.

The day was hot, still and sunny. Helen and I agreed we didn't mind this so much coming out and hiking downhill, but if we'd had weather this warm on the hike in, uphill in the heat, we would have hated it.

At 1pm we reached the trailhead and packed up for the ride back to Lander. Tim B left from there to drive straight back to Colorado, while the 4 of us split hotel rooms, cleaned up and hit the Gannett Grill (pizza! nachos!) and the Lander Bar (beer!).