We took our time packing up our gear and getting ready for the hike out. The benefit to us was that the longer we waited the warmer it was going to be as we hit the trail. From our campsite the parking lot is a few miles in this direction:
We had a great time camping and the lack of oxygen didn’t seem to be an issue anymore, but of course we had to take a goofy photo of all of us.
And as we started our hike we noticed all of the people heading up the trail to the peek this early in the morning. (You can see them if you look closely, they are the tiny specks along the ridge from the lower left to the upper right.)
We were leaving the snow behind and heading more into the bushes, the temperature was perfect and it was going to be a great day for hiking. We couldn’t wait to sleep in a bed again, the cold hard ground was pretty rough after a few nights even with the inflatable sleeping pad.
So over the river and through the woods, to the parking lot we go… (You can thank me later for sticking that song in your head.)
The trail actually does go through the pines in this photo and then winds down the mountains to the valley below. The good news is that our packs are a little lighter but we could have left about half of the food in the car because that is what we were hiking out with. I guess it’s better to have had too much food than not enough. (The marmots probably agree with that as well.)