Of cameras and granite

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Re: Of cameras and granite Whitney Zone #11049 11/02/07 08:18 PM
Joined: Sep 2009 Posts: 108 WhitneyZone W Whitney Zone OP admin
OP Whitney Zone admin W Joined: Sep 2009 Posts: 108 WhitneyZone	Posted by Steve C, 11-02-07 Oh, one more thing I forgot to mention above... About an hour into my quest, I came to the edge of the bushes, and a clean granite ramp in one section. There lying on top of a small boulder was a little blue memory chip. I picked it up and it looked ok, so I put it in my pocket. I thought if that was what I was looking for, there would be some additional camera parts laying around. But there was nothing. So I figured it was not what I wanted, and spent another hour scrambling all over the place finding bottles practically everywhere I looked. In hindsight, I should have tried it in my camera. So I had no clue whether the chip was any good, or if it could have been the right one. So I continued on until I was tired, and then headed down. At home, I tried it in my computer, and it acted dead. Maybe because the computer was just starting up. I don't know. But then I stuck it into my external chip reader that I got for my old computer 4 years ago, and pictures showed up! But it had family pictures on it. ....but browsing through, BINGO!!! Whitney pictures! And then at the end, Half Dome! CaT, yesterday was your lucky day! I've got copies of all 545 pictures (1.8 GB) on my hard drive. I'll get your chip in the mail some time next week. Here are some highlights: The chip: Summit shot: And the very last one: Posted by HikeUp, 11-02-07 Wow! Posted by VersatileFred, 11-02-07 Looks like you found the "tiny blue 2Gig SD chip" mentioned in post #1! _________________________ Orientation Notes for Whitney First Timers Posted by Steve C, 11-02-07 Originally Posted By: VersatileFred Are you saying that it is a hazardous area to be in during the summer since you could be a target for falling debris before you get to the base? Did you feel safer now that it is November? Definitely safer. I knew there were only half a dozen people going up that day. With the hundreds on a summer weekend, an object could have come down. ...But empty water bottles wouldn't be a problem, and something heavy like a camera would be rare. Quote: Originally Posted By: Steve C I finally reached the trail near where it splits between the river route and the half dome main route. Do you mean over by Little Yosemite Valley backpacker camp? Just out of curiosity, where did you hike up from the trail? I remember the flat section of the trail where people get a glimpse of the back side, but that is before the backpacker camp. Coming down in the evening, I came out some distance west of the "y" where the trail to the backpacker camp splits off. Going up, I hiked the trail clear up to where the granite steps start climbing the quarter dome. I would NOT want to bushwhack up-hill through that stuff! Posted by Steve C, 11-02-07 Originally Posted By: VersatileFred Looks like you found the "tiny blue 2Gig SD chip" mentioned in post #1! Yep! I hope CaT won't hold it against me for not telling him right away. I just wanted to have some fun with the surprise. I just can't believe how miraculous it was to find ONLY the chip, lying in plain sight on a small boulder. As if someone had just set it there for me to pick up. Posted by VersatileFred, 11-02-07 Originally Posted By: Steve C Going up, I hiked the trail clear up to where the granite steps start climbing the quarter dome. I would NOT want to bushwhack up-hill through that stuff! Thanks. Now I have a better picture where you were. _________________________ Orientation Notes for Whitney First Timers Posted by Beerbrewer, 11-02-07 Steve, Amazing SAR for the chip! Pretty awesome that you found it and I know CaT will be ecstatic. Congrats! Adam Posted by tomcat_rc, 11-03-07 very nice OBTW - excellent job Steve _________________________ Smugmug Photos facebook Posted by BeachAV8R, 11-03-07 Incredible. I guess you had better be careful not to have any uh..risque photos of the girlfriend (or wife) on those cards when you go hiking.. Posted by Wayne, 11-03-07 Awesome, Steve C! What a story..and to find the chip. Wow! Posted by California-Trailwalker, 11-03-07 OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I THINK I'M HAVING A CORONARY!!!!!!! (not literally) I'M SPEECHLESS!!!!!!!!!! MY WIFE IS HAVING TO HOLD ME DOWN!!!!! pant, pant... Let me settle down for a while and then I'll reply further after reading all of these posts! "Thank you!" doesn't EVEN begin to express how I feel at the moment!!!!! You have no IDEA how grateful I am for you to have found this chip! And yes, that IS my chip (and the pictures of me, etc.). Quote: Pretty awesome that you found it and I know CaT will be ecstatic. That's putting it mildly!!!!!! More later ... we were about to run out the door to watch the Buckeyes beat Wisconsin when I did a quick last second check of this MB before shutting down the computer, so I've gotta head out (the Buckeyes game seems so unimportant now compared to this, but gotta go anyway). More later... THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!!!! CaT Ohio State 38; Wisconsin - 17 -- What a great day!! Edit Reason: Added final outcome of Ohio State's win over Wisconsin! Posted by drhabes, 11-03-07 Way to go SteveC!! WOW! This thread has been going on for a long time and to see it end up like this is very rewarding, especially for CaT! Couldn't write (photograph!) a better ending! Posted by AlanK, 11-03-07 Originally Posted By: BeachAV8R Incredible. I guess you had better be careful not to have any uh..risque photos of the girlfriend (or wife) on those cards when you go hiking.. Or yourself, unless you want that kind of Internet fame. Posted by California-Trailwalker, 11-03-07 Quote: I hope CaT won't hold it against me for not telling him right away. I just wanted to have some fun with the surprise. Steve - Well worth the wait, my friend! I probably would have done the same if our roles had been reversed! I wish you could have been a fly on the wall at our house when I first saw your post and realized that you had actually found it! I was sort-of like a wild cat on steroids!! Finding that little blue chip sitting on top of a rock in the middle of all that rough terrain in such a remote place, esp. with the intervening weather and the passage of time since this first happened, is indeed miraculous -- like finding the proverbial needle in a haystack. The fact that not even one piece of the camera was nearby is pretty incredible too. Now that the chip has been found, I'll be going into the camera shop where I bought the camera to get my new "replacement insurance" camera. You can be sure I will take to heart some of the good suggestions mentioned earlier in this post as to better securing and identifying the new camera and its memory chip. I see the PM icon flashing as I write this, which I assume is a reply from you. So I'll post this so I can read your PM without losing this post here. Again, thank you so very much! You have made my day, week, month, etc.!! While a chip is only a material thing, its loss had nonetheless been on the back of my mind since it happened, and I feel like a weight has been lifted, thanks to your incredible effort. This MB is really in many ways like a family. I've never met you, Steve, nor most others here, in person; but yet it's amazing how we all will go to these kinds of lengths for each other, sight unseen. I do hope that we can connect in person some time when we're both hiking in the Sierra. CaT Posted by Steve C Steve, 11-03-07 Hey CaT, You're certainly welcome. The satisfaction I have felt was well worth the effort. Heck, just getting up there one more time before winter hits was worth all the effort. Your "needle in a haystack" term is close, but in this case, I think the needle was sitting right on top of the haystack. It's just incredible. Not sure what else to say -- your sentiments about the board say it so well. And we owe a big thanks to Doug for starting it and keeping it running. None of this could have happened without this board. Posted by CheckSix, 11-03-07 Wow! Double wow!! Triple wow!!! Blue chip resting atop a boulder - think of the chances. Posted by California-Trailwalker, 11-04-07 Quote: And we owe a big thanks to Doug for starting it and keeping it running. None of this could have happened without this board. Amen to that! Thanks Doug! CaT Posted by Richard P., 11-04-07 Seconding the Wow! Thanks for mentioning me in your Summit Register sign in! Awesome work Steve! Posted by DocRodneydog, 11-04-07 This is one in a million story.Ripleys Believe It Or Not kind of stuff. Then again it has been said "There are no coincidences". Posted by California-Trailwalker, 11-04-07 Quote: Thanks for mentioning me in your Summit Register sign in! You and Snowy each tried to get me to the summit in successive previous years; so I wanted to credit both of you for your greatly appreciated efforts. CaT Posted by California-Trailwalker, 11-04-07 Quote: I guess you had better be careful not to have any uh..risque photos of the girlfriend (or wife) on those cards when you go hiking.. Not to worry... Posted by BeachAV8R, 11-04-07 Originally Posted By: Sierra Snail Awesome work Steve! You're not going to send SteveC up toward Thor to find your missing..ahem..stolen water bottles now are you?? Posted by Richard P, 11-05-07 Might be a good excuse for him to get over to this side of the Sierra again. Posted by josh, 11-17-07 Submerged camera holds functional memory card two years after accident Posted by Steve C, 11-17-07 Good story. The last sentence made me laugh: Quote: but no one ever found the loner who snapped up the couple's misplaced cellphone and ran up calls to Zimbabwe 'til the battery died. Posted by mattyj, 11-17-07 I was just about to drag this thread back anyway. Before Steve C's trip, I'd gone to the base of HD to look for the camera and cleanup trash. Both efforts failed - apparently I walked right by the memory card without seeing it, and I had to abandon my two teeming trash bags in the middle of the woods when I was unable to carry them further and they were threatening to split open and dump their contents all over the forest. At some point, I will have to return with some heavier-duty bags and finish hauling them out. Unfortunately for Steve I managed to make quite the booty call when I was out there, leaving him to scour a field of moldy water bottles for part of a camera and a sleeping bag. The stuff's been sitting in a bag ever since, but I finally got around to taking some pictures: The intact cell phone and one of the FRS radios was recovered from the ledge below the cables; everything else came from the base. Bigger files & a few more closeups are available in my gallery and Steve also copied them to his Smugmug account so that I could post a few inline w/ my message (the [img] tag requires images to end in .jpg or some such for this site). Although all 3 cameras (and the lens from camera #4) were all within a 30-foot radius of eachother, I couldn't find a single memory card or camera battery. My best guess is that they separated on impact and took flight. The camera phone I recovered from below the cables did have a memorystick in it, and while I was hoping for spy photos of bikini models, no such luck. The acute observer will note that while a fishing reel and several cameras were recovered, the reel reported missing by markskor and CaT's camera are both at large. Also, while I don't have any photos (my evidence is somewhere in the hills above LYV), I discovered that while Nalgene bottles are mostly indestructible, the softer plastic caps are subject to a ~50% failure rate when dropped 1000 feet. One last thing: based on the amount of crap down there, I would recommend wearing a helmet at all times. Personally, I wouldn't get close to the base on a busy summer weekend. Posted by C McLain, 11-25-07 Made the local paper. Great story! http://www.fresnobee.com/263/story/222385.html _________________________ Chris McLain http://www.McLainPhotography.com "The Mountains are calling, and I must go" -- John Muir Posted by Richard P, 11-25-07 THAT is too cool! Posted by Ken, 11-25-07 That is a GREAT story! Wonderfully written. How did it come to be? One of the last lines I found particularly moving, and emblematic of the wonders of this internet: "The two men have never met, never even spoken on the phone. But thanks to the Internet and some incredibly good fortune, they share a bond that won't be erased anytime soon." _________________________ Bonatti backed off the Croz Spur 7 times before doing it. He said "Great climbers die in their rocking chairs." Posted by California-Trailwalker, 11-25-07 Unknown to me at first, Steve had called the Fresno paper, and as it turned out, this reporter decided to run a story on the lost camera and found chip. I just now read his story, and thought he captured it all very well. It was also the first time I had seen the picture of Steve by his computer monitor with the picture of me on HD on the monitor. Very nice picture, Steve! I thought that picture summed it up as well as any picture could have. As we speak, I'm still working on uploading and captioning the recovered pictures onto Flickr in such a way that the various groups of people I know can conveniently view only those portions of my overall trip that they are interested in, probably in the form of a TR that will have links to the various subsections of the overall trip. CaT Posted by Steve C, 11-25-07 The day after I found the chip, I was so stoked, I called the local paper's outdoor writer. He has written several articles on Yosemite and Half Dome, and wrote a good article about a friend, Carolyn, who has lost lots of weight and now leads Sierra Club hikes. I just thought he might have fun with the article. He told me the article was coming out last Wednesday in the paper's Outdoor section, then called to say, "Somebody with a bigger paycheck than mine decided it was going to go on the Sunday front page." I am sorry the article link only shows the silly mug shot picture. The actual article shows the dead tree/cliff shot filling a quarter of the front page. Then on the continuation page, David's shot down the cables is almost as large: I have copied the paper's front page pdf and stored it here (2.6 MB). Here are two shots of the two pages in the paper. (Click on them for a full-size image): Edit: Just for cross-reference, California-Trailwalker posted a parallel thread in the "Yosemite News and Discussion Forum". The thread is here: Of Cameras and Granite. Posted by California-Trailwalker, 11-26-07 Steve - Thanks for providing the links to the PDFs of these two print version pages! Definitely more pictures than in the online version! CaT Posted by California-Trailwalker, 12-14-07 Quote: I tried to collect on one once and learned that I had to return at least part of the damaged product... WAClimber - I wanted to close one final open issue from this thread, namely, how the camera replacement insurance worked out in my case. Unhappily, it didn't! The above quote from your earlier post also turned out to be true of my situation, despite the camera salesman at the store knowing me, believing my story, and typing it up in great detail in the online claim he made to the ins. co. on my behalf. The ins. co. still strictly held to their "return an identifiable piece of the camera" policy. But just like with the camera and the chip, I'm not giving up on this just yet. The couple I assisted from Half Dome all the way back to Yosemite Valley during the 5 hours immediately after I dropped my camera both saw me drop it and saw it tumble down the south face of HD. First, I'm going to try personally writing the contact person at the ins. co., and if necessary, submit sworn affidavits from the couple I helped regarding what they witnessed, along with an affidavit of my own indicating that the circumstances of the disappearance of the camera are clearly not "mysterious", but that trying to get to where the camera (or its component pieces) may be located (on one of the ledges on the way down the south face) would be too dangerous, even if I knew for certain that it/they were there. I'm also going to take a look at the Exif data from the pictures on my returned chip to see if any of that data would possibly identify the camera in some specific way. We'll see how it goes. I'm not giving up on the ins. front without exhausting all my options. CaT Update - Exif data doesn't include a serial number or anything specific... #41413-1189997160