Day 3 of my Bear Creek trip saw me rise at first light, followed by a leisurely morning consisting of several cups of coffee and a light breakfast as I watched the creek tumble over Twin Falls. There was literally no sign of the previous night’s rain – everything I could see looked completely dry. Today’s weather called for high clouds broken here and there by sun, and the morning temperature was cool but quite comfortable – the down puffy I carried in my pack never once made it out. After a couple of hours, I packed up and started back down the trail about 8:45am. The going was easy as I made my way southwest along the path, downhill virtually the whole way. The walk was very pleasant, the only annoyance being the various points where foliage encroached into the trail – these branches and leaves were loaded with moisture from the rain and soaked my shorts as I passed through. I alternated being right along the creek for some sections and tracking further away for others, but most of the route was still in deep morning shade. About halfway back, I came across a dark grey snake stretched out in the middle of the trail – not sure if he was cold or just content, but he seemed not to care a bit that I was passing by. Still not having seen anyone else this morning, I was surprised to find another solo hiker passing downstream as I took a drink break on a trailside boulder – it turns out he had been in the Subaru I followed into the trailhead parking area on Friday, and it had been his group’s tents I had seen in the camping spots near the JMT junction the previous day. He wandered off ahead of me, but I ended up passing him a few hundred yards later when he stopped to chat with a small party heading in. That group and another larger one further down were the only folks I saw going upstream, and I soon found myself at the mouth of canyon where I passed the wilderness boundary and neared the trailhead – the last few hundred yards were the only uphill on the hike out. Other than the snake, a most uneventful day, although the drive back to Huntington Lake was made exceedingly long as I got stuck following a pair of slow-moving horse trailers most of the way. I very much enjoyed the solitude and, as this was my first solo backpacking trip, I certainly got the complete experience my first time out on my own. More of these to come, I think.