We break camp and head southeast in the Xterra, taking the long route to Reno, 130 miles north, to check out more canyons. A couple nights ago, Donato spent hours on the phone with an aviation expert in Hawaii who said he'd studied some radar tracks he thought might be Fossett's near Cottonwood Canyon, and Donato is afflicted with second-guessing. Cottonwood is also within the area that Robert Hyman's team has targeted, and, after our own brutal week, Donato thinks we can give it a quick recon for their effort.

Cottonwood Canyon is on a military depot, and we have to hop a big yellow government entrance gate to gain access. Our watches tell us it's 104 degrees, the kind of hot that turns the water in your hydration bladder to warm spit. There are shiny things on the canyon walls and Simon, like Ahab, is glassing them. He takes off up the scree to verify that a shiny piece of juniper is just a piece of wood.

Some of the guys are dubious: This area has been searched extensively from the air. "The logic is gone," says Mandelli, a voice of aged wisdom throughout the week. "We all have hope, but this week's done. The wheels are falling off."

We head upcanyon anyway. "I've been following Simon around on his bad ideas for 27 years,"his buddy Greg Marshall says. "I'm not gonna stop now."

The team hikes a mile or so higher, and if this were a western, there'd be forlorn whistles and rattlesnake sounds. Donato's stride says he'd scramble all the way to Reno if need be. Then finally he stops, toes gravel with his shoe, and does a 180. There is a moment of silence. A jet shoots through the distance.

"All right. That's it,"Donato says. "Let's go to Reno."

It's hard to admit defeat, to call it without victory. Now, standing out in the desert with no sign of an aviator, there's only one thing for an elite athlete to do. Race!It's a simple cross-country start for what the GPS tells us will be a four-mile footrace back to the vehicles, where Szlater is running the air conditioning and drinking Sprite. Not exactly the Raid Gauloises, but the winner gets his own bed in Reno and won't have to spoon a teammate, like Ishmael and Queeqeg at the Spouter Inn.

Derek Caveney starts us: "On your marks. Get set. Go!" Turbocock takes a quick lead. Gary Hudson holds steady, then starts to build momentum. But then, a mile and a half down, Donato pulls up sharply. I slow and ask if he's OK.

"I'm good," he says and ducks into the alders alongside Cottonwood Creek. Captain Donato is off-course! He's forfeiting the race! "I just want to take a quick look in here,"he hollers over his shoulder, then disappears into the thicket.

JOGGERS ARE ALWAYS finding a body-just pick up the morning paper. Fast forward two months and this time it was a hiker: I got the news from Simon that Preston Morrow, the manager of Kittredge Sports in Mammoth Lakes, California, had found Fossett's aviation ID cards and a grand in cash in pine needles off a goat path seven miles west of the Mammoth Mountain ski resort. This was 60 miles from where we'd been searching on the Nevada border; at least Donato had chipped the search area down from 20,000 square miles to within 60 miles of the bull's-eye. His instincts were right. He was eating an apple at his desk, taking a break from finding oil and looking at the probable crash site on Google Earth. "This is five kilometers from where I'd wanted to go next, if we'd had more time and money."

A flurry of e-mails landed in my box from all the Team Adventure Science members. They were chomping at the bit to be out there with crews from the Madero County Sheriff's Department, above 9,000 feet, searching for the wreckage in terrain not accessible by anything with wheels. Greg Francek, the Amador County deputy, was headed up to the command center to assist in the search and recovery operation. There was no schadenfreude, rather something much closer to sportsmanship.

"I'm just so glad that we can put any conspiracy to rest," Robert Hyman told me Thursday, the day searchers found the fuselage and then, late in the day, pieces of human remains they'll use to match DNA with Fossett's. The mass of the wreckage was, true to high-speed impact form, the size of a couple of crumpled shopping carts. "I'm most glad they found Steve. If we can help search-and-rescue methodology in the future, great."

That's still Donato's hope. The hunt for Fossett is over. But there are still dinosaur bones to be found in Alberta and melting ice fields in Greenland to explore. Team Adventure Science is just getting started.