We made the movie above before I built a rock windscreen to help my stove heat the water for dinner. The wind can quickly rob the pot of heat and burn through my only can of fuel. Although I thought I heard George and Dave at one point (and shouted back), we never saw them and eventually went to bed. I started to wonder if they had turned back for some reason as we were very close to the trail and it seemed impossible that we'd missed them.
The next morning we took our time breaking camp. I was thinking our lost companions may have got tired and made camp further back along the trail and I wanted to give them an opportunity to make up some ground. After packing up, it was around 10am and I figured we either missed them or they turned back. Never in all the years we've been backpacking in the high Sierra have we ever been in an area where our cell phones would work. In fact, I wouldn't even be carrying my phone had Dave not forgotten to leave his phone in the car at the exit point. Just in case of car trouble, I decided to pack my phone so we'd have a phone when we got out. Somehow we were reaching the cell tower back at Mammoth. Our extreme elevation was keeping line of sight open. I used the one bar of service to send Dave an email telling him of our plan in case they turned back. As we dropped down the opposite side (North side) of the mountain, we ran into a few fairly thick snow patches in the shade of the mountain.