Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion Lost camera

which reminds me of something that happened to me in the 90s - back in 1988, I climbed Half Dome with a home made daypack hanging over my shoulder, and two nice Nikon lenses popped out of the poorly designed opening, bouncing down from the middle of the cables, one apparently down to Yosemite Valley, the other down to Nevada Fall. Big bummer.

4 years later, in the early internet days, I met a hiker who I had been talking to on the rec.backcountry newsgroup (about the only place you could chat about the outdoors back then). I had told him the story about my lenses, and when we met in Tuolumne Meadows at the store parking lot, he spotted my Wisconsin license plate to ID me and walked up asking me "Sir, does this belong to you?" He was holding one of my lens caps (easily ID'd by the cap having marks I rememebred), found at the foot of the cables on a rock ledge a few years earlier. Now what are the chances that you meet that guy on the internet at a time only 0.5% of the population even knew what email was? OK, so I didn't get my lenses back - those will be going back into the earth's crust anbd become the silicon they were created from at some point in the distant future, but it proves that sometimes absolutely unlikely things will happen to you.

Like meeting the same people you don't even know the names of at almost the same spot on the Muir Trail two years in a row? And then have that happen twice with two different hikers? It happened to us in '09 and '10 - although that may only be proof that some folks go there a lot ;-)

To all of you following this thread:

I am very excited to inform you, that Rod was right. On Dec 31, 4 months after the loss, I got a mail stating that someone was trying to get in contact with me to return a camera. FedEx delivered it today. It was not through this forum though. However, you people here have helped me alot and I wanted not only to post a feed back but to thank you all for participating in the search. I have learned a lot from you! The fact that people out there care was a worthwhile experience.

Take care hiking

Happy Chris

Congratulations, Chris!!!

What a bright spot to see that your camera found its way home ...all the way to Switzerland!

And thanks for posting to let us all know.


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Based on the several lost camera reports I've seen, I have done two things to my camera:

1. Printed my name, address and telephone number on a piece of paper and took a picture of it. That picture never gets deleted from t he camera's memory chip, so anyone looking for pictures will find it.

2. Printed the info in tiny font and taped it to the camera battery. I also folded an edge of the paper around the battery that says "Owner info", so when the battery slot is opened, you see that text. Slide the battery out, and anyone can see who to call.

Congrats on the return of your camera! I hope you are able to download all your pictures and post a few.

Excellent, Chris!!!

CaT

Steve,
Can you dig up the story of the chip found at Half Dome during a clean up?

> Can you dig up the story of the chip found at Half Dome during a clean up?

Here it is:  Of cameras and granite

It's a long read but it's well worth it.

Just for kicks, I clicked on the link to the old WPSMB thread that I started. First thing I noticed was that the first photo of the back side of Half Dome with the red line I drew on it to indicate the approximate "fall path" and landing location of the camera/chip is no longer displaying because I have long since canceled the Smugmug account I had at the time. If I can figure out what I did with that picture, perhaps I can upload it to my wife's Flickr account (I let my Flickr Pro account expire recently -- don't use it enough to justify keeping it), and then rework the link reference on the old WPSMB thread so that it displays properly for posterity.

Man, this thread sure is like the energizer bunny -- it keeps on goin'.

CaT

Wow have to admit I sounded like Nostradamus. That was pretty good call on my part.Mountain people are just really good about respecting and returning lost and found items.I knew it would get back to "home"