Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Of cameras and granite

CaT-

I just got a call from some friends to do some climbing in Yosemite this weekend. We'll have climbing gear so if we end up over by HD, I'll see if I can find any traces of your camera.

CaT's situation brought to mind a scenario I dealt with a week or two ago on the John Muir Trail, on the way to Whitney. At Woods Creek one encounters a long, narrow and impressive suspension bridge over the creek. Cool! Make for a great photo!

So, with full backpack on, I put my two trekking poles into my left hand and have my new, 10 meg point and shoot in my right and climb the ladder and walk about five paces onto the bridge ready to start shooting. About that time I realize it is a SWINGING bridge that moves quite a bit especially as one gets closer to the middle of the span. I experience the swinging, look down between the wood slats of the bridge floor and feel like Wile E. Coyote at the moment after he runs off the edge of a cliff and realizes there's no more land below his feet. And the bridge jerks back and fourth with each shift of my weight from foot to foot.

So now I want to steady myself and the bridge by holding onto the side cables. But my hands are full and my camera is not tethered to my wrist. I look down and the wood slats of the bridge are spaced exactly wide enough apart to allow my camera to fall to the boulders and water below, and with each shift of my weight the bridge tilts and swings as I try to steady it and myself. I'm suddenly like a man on a tight rope holding my arms out to my side to steady myself.

I want to put my camera into my right hand pants pocket, but it is covered up by the hip belt of my pack. My left pant leg, fortunately, does have a patch pocket part way down the leg and so I stand for a while figuring out a smooth strategy for reaching across (with a full, somewhat top-heavy pack) and pulling back the pocket flap with the hand that still holds the camera and depositing my camera in that pocket without fumbling and dropping either the camera or my trekking poles, or tripping and falling and rolling off the side of the still moving bridge. The simple motion of reaching for the pocket makes the bridge jerk and swing.

Or do I just continue walking slow and steady, hands full, not being able to hold the cables across the long moving bridge that will be increasingly unsteady as I get closer to the middle?

Well, after a minute of so of trying to gain composure, I was able to gingerly steady myself and the bridge and twist and bend and carefully deposit the camera into my pants pocket and then continue across the bridge while using one hand to steady myself with the side cable.

All was well. Just another little part of the adventure of hiking the JMT. No big deal. But the innocuous camera wrist strap is something I will pay more attention to using in the future especially where heights and drops are a significant factor. Thank you for letting me share!

And I truly hope someone recovers CaT's camera and memory card. That quest could be a interesting treasure hunt.

Sounds great, Sam!
Hope you have an enjoyable weekend.
Let me know how things work out.

CaT

CaT-

While the weather forecast called for severe clear on Sunday, it ended up being a wet and windy day in Yosemite. The wet rock really slowed down the climbing, so I'm afraid that I did not get a chance to hunt for your camera when we were done. Sorry I couldn't help you out, but will try again next trip if it hasn't been located by then.

So much for the billions of tax dollars that we spend on weather forecasting.

Sam,

If it was wet and windy, I'm surprised you did any climbing at all. Although it wasn't wet the day I did Cloud's Rest and Half Dome (and the camera met its demise), it was pretty windy.

I'm thankful for your willingness to have at least thought about trying to look around for my camera.

CaT

Yo CaT:

Was just up on Half Dome this past Friday (9/28) for a great dayhike, albeit a bit cloudy and windy up top. While up there, I saw a number of volunteers (and a couple of uniformed Rangers) on the saddle between SubDome and the base of the Cables who were assisting a few others who were roped in and lowered down on either side of the saddle. Apparently, this past week was a big, end-of-season clean-up effort there within the climbing community, with a huge number of climbers descending upon Yosemite Valley to pick up trash not only in the various meadows, but also from hundreds of feet down the most popular cliffs. One volunteer said it was his crew's chance to "give back". And, from what I saw, they hauled out a lotta trash -- so much so, that it had to be helicoptered off from SubDome later that day! Maybe one of the volunteers came upon your (hopefully unshattered) Casio, chip, or both. It's worth a shot.

BruinDave

Yo BruinDave!!

Wow! Thanks!

I immediately called the NPS' Yosemite lost and found (with whom I filed a report re: my camera) and left my info and a fairly detailed description, etc., despite having already filed a written lost and found report. The recorded greeting for that line said that, due to the large number of daily calls they receive, they can only return a call if they actually find your lost item. Notwithstanding, your post gave me a bit of renewed hope that perhaps my camera will be located (and hopefully not mistaken for trash and thrown out without a second look).

Again, many thanks!!!

CaT

Your thread gave me an interesting idea...I pretty much never swap out memory cards in my cameras since they are so huge (up to 4GB)..so I got to thinking maybe it would be good idea to take the first picture of a sheet of paper with my name and address on it, then use the "protect" setting for that single frame so that it never gets deleted. That way if I ever lose the camera or misplace it, that image will always be on there..and perhaps the person that finds it will have a heart and send it back..

(Yeah, I know..you could just engrave your telephone number on the bottom or something....)

Chris

Hey 'walker:

Just spoke with the very helpful folks up in Yosemite. The event was not a National Park Service clean-up, but rather an annual effort called "Yosemite Face Lift" sponsored by the Yosemite Climbing Association. To give you an idea of the magnitude of this event, over 1,100 volunteers participated last year, donating about 10,000 hours over a 5-day clean-up.

Here's their website: http://www.yosemiteclimbing.org/. The contact name I got was Ken Yager, and here's his e-mail address from the above site -- yager@inreach.com. Good luck to you ... and GO BUCKS!!

BruinDave

p.s. I was also told that on the ABC Evening News next Monday (October 8th), they'll be running a 4 minute bit on the clean-up.

Hey Bruin man,

What valuable information!! Thank you so much!
I just sent an e-mail to Ken Yager with some specifics, as well as a link to this thread, in the hope that he might be able to provide further information or leads. That Facelift event sounds like something I'd volunteer for if I lived a bit closer to Yosemite. Perhaps I can plan a trip to Yosemite next year to coincide with their annual event.

I'll be sure and post here what I hear from Ken.

Again, I'm very grateful for your help and for the leads.
And yeah...! GO BUCKS!!! (The football Buckeyes are like a religion here in Columbus)

CaT

PS - I don't normally watch the evening news on any channel these days, but I will be sure and watch ABC's evening news on Monday!

UPDATE - Ken replied fairly quickly to say that he forwarded my e-mail to Jesse McGahey, who was the person overseeing the cleanup in the area I had mentioned. I thanked Ken, and copied Jesse on my reply to Ken.

Googling "Jesse McGahey" and "Yosemite" turned up a motherload on him. He took over as the Yosemite Climbing Ranger in May 2006, is a very experienced climber, all around nice guy, and just got married late last month. I was able to get his Yosemite work phone number from the "signature" in his posts on one of the message boards he is a member of, and though a little off topic, here is a link to his wedding web page.

Does anyone here know Jesse? Just curious.

UPDATE - Ken Yager further responded:


and then in a subsequent e-mail a little later:


I asked that he keep me in mind if there is a different outcome once he hears from that crew.

CaT

FINAL UPDATE - Well, the short story is that the camera has not been found and is unlikely to be found until next year, if at all. Many thanks to those at the CYA Facelift who looked, as well as to others here and on another MB who were going to look, but whose trips were altered at the last minute by unpredictable circumstances, rendering them unable to look. All thoughts, suggestions, and efforts were greatly appreciated!

CaT

I have been watching the weather and conditions, and in spite of the late date, yesterday looked like a good day to go. So I took a day off and hiked up and looked around for the camera.

Unfortunately, I did not find ANY trace of the unique red colored camera. I found maybe half a dozen lens caps, and several parts of camera cases. I found a piece of an old camera body -- just the plastic back, and there was a tiny geared film advance mechanism. Among the few batteries were several that had been part of an attached pair, but the pair had been ripped apart.

So I think any camera going over must explode into tiny pieces when it hits. There are several hundred feet of purely vertical free fall, so they must be going about 80 mph.

I posted pictures from my adventure here (Select the "journal" style in the upper right of the window to see my comments.)
  Half Dome Camera search

I also found hats, gloves, a red bicycle light cover, 2-way radio, even a sleeping bag ...and hundreds of water bottles!

The water bottles were the big thing. By the number, it appears hikers are tossing them. I filled a garbage bag with about 80, and carried it out. There were hundreds more that I had to leave. The bottles were a good indicator of the impact zone. It extends for quite a ways along the base, but also for a hundred yards downslope away from the base.

So I think the camera completely disintegrated. Any small parts must be sprinkled around in the bushes, out of sight.

The funny part was the sleeping bag. I found it nearly 100 yards downslope from the base. It was a light weight down-filled bag with a Canadian brand. Even though my garbage sack was full, I fortunately decided to carry it out, too. Soon, the trash bag fell apart due to the brush tearing holes in it. So then I switched to the second bag. It too fell apart pretty soon. So I opened the sleeping bag and zipped my junk inside. This worked well. Part of the descent was so steep and slippery that I had to toss the bag down, lower myself by hanging onto manzanita branches, then pick up the bag and continue.

I finally reached the trail near where it splits between the river route and the half dome main route. Soon after that, I met a guy from Pacifica, and we continued on down to the Nevada Fall restroom, where I was going to dump my load. He took a liking to the bag, and so I told him he could have it. We dumped the bottles next to the supplies behind the restroom, re-stuffed the bag, and he carried it down.

CaT, I just spoke to some guy in the "Roads and Trails" department, and he thanked me for hauling out the trash. He said the ranger in that area, Sam from Alabama, had hauled a bunch of stuff ("500 pounds") out of there. And Sam has been laid off for the winter. That doesn't agree with what you got.

Steve,

Thanks very much! Nice pix, too. I'll PM you about some other details. Not sure who Sam the ranger is, but if he's unrelated to the CYA Facelift cleanup folks, then there's no disagreement between the accounts, in that he may have done a separate cleanup himself after the CYA Facelift missed that area earlier this fall. But that's only my spectulation. It doesn't really matter, I suppose. I wonder if Sam the ranger (or anyone else) sifted through the 500 pounds of stuff that was picked up to see if there were any valuable items in it?

I was amazed at the quantity of stuff you found, esp. the water bottles. Were these just empty name brand (Dasani, etc.) store-bought water bottles, or were they higher quality, reusable nalgene or hard plastic bottles?

Thanks again for looking and for the report. Your car looks like it was a blast to drive on those mountain roads, too!

CaT

About 10% of the bottles were the heavier nalgene bottles. I found blue, green, red and opaque ones. All the rest were grocery store type water bottles.

Yes, the mountain roads with no traffic are a blast. And Mike Valentine helped me along the way.

Steve,
Thanks for your clean up work and pictures. I do have a couple questions.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?
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.

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:

Wow!