Bailey Range: Day 5: Out the Elwha

It was the last day and it had been such a great trip. Never once had we had any issue with the weather except for the mildly intense heat. I couldn't say that we were excited to be done because then it just meant back to responsibilities, well for me at least, but we had to know what was going on with fantasy baseball.
I had a slim lead when we left and I was hoping that I could keep it. The morning started out with a finish of our hot food and then we got the packs loaded for the last trip out. There was a short bit of uphill first that brought us to an incredible view looking back toward the Bailey's. They were not washed out this morning and it was hard to believe that we had spent the week hanging out in those amazing mountains. It was time to leave, though so we bid adieu. Then it was a seemingly endless amount of switchbacks downhill. This would be quite the workout to come up this hill. Right now, though it was just a constant down turning right then left.

 Then eventually we reached the Elwha River. We were somewhat excited to see our first group of people here. They were some middle aged ladies out for an afternoon hike. We began seeing more and more people as we crossed the bridge. One guy knew that we had come from the Bailey's and asked how Cream Lake was doing. He was in his 70's and looked as if he longed to be in our shoes for the past couple of days. I could understand if he had been out there a few times. We went through the endless signs and junctions of the Elwha until we made it back to the trailhead with a 14 mile day behind us. We were happy to be back to the car and I still held my slim lead in fantasy baseball. It would be nice to fly back to my family, but there is no beating the wilderness of the Olympic Mountains during a perfect week in the month of September.