On the 16th of April 1874, Packer emerged from the woods alone and stumbled his way across a frozen lake bed to the Los Pinós Indian Agency, near Saguache, Colorado, with rags lashed to his feet. As the men of the agency sat around the table of the mess hall eating breakfast, the door was flung open, and Packer stood before them begging for food and shelter. He carried with him a rifle, a knife, a steel coffee pot, and a satchel. The men hurried Packer inside, sat him down at the table and gave him some food, which he vomited as quickly as he ate it. Packer said that his digestion was altered as a result of his prolonged near-starvation. After several shots of whiskey, he related to the men the events leading up to Ouray's camp, and that he had been hired by five men to guide them to Breckenridge from there. He stated that during their journey, he had become snow-blind and was lagging behind the remainder of his party, becoming a burden for them. Packer claimed that a member of the party, named Israel Swan, supplied him with a rifle. They then abandoned him. He claimed he was then forced to survive on his own and make his way out of the mountains with minimal ammunition and virtually no supplies, and ate little else than roots and rose buds the entire time he was alone. The men at the agency listened to his story, but found it rather odd, that even though he had been lost in the wilderness for a little over two months – he did not look as malnourished and threadbare as most lost wanderers they had ever come across. His face was reported as being bloated, and his overall physique hardly skeletal. Packer claimed he was broke, and sold the Winchester rifle he had in his possession to Major Downer, the agency's justice of the peace, for $10 (). Packer stayed at the agency for ten days before he expressed that he wished to go back home to Pennsylvania, and then headed to the nearby town of Saguache, to buy supplies for his journey.