The camera fell several hundred feet and landed in a rocky gorge with a river running through it, and is apparently in pieces. Also, they have only recovered the camera and lens, and there was a LOT more than that in the bag - another body, a few lenses, tripod, etc. I was the stuff bursting all over the place as it fell, and god knows where most of it is!
For your interest, here is the full story, which I emailed to the magazine.
Apparently a guy found the camera whilst out walking, and his neighbour realised it was fairly expensive and therefore had the initiative to contact a photography magazine, who started circulating the pic on the internet.
For you interest in case you want the full story, I was up in the mountains with my two friends camping for around a week. I was due to leave to start training at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst a week or two later, and this was a final form of training for me.
We drove up from Newcastle, parked near Glencoe, and just walked up the mountains fully equipped to last a few days, then we were going down for food, then back up again.
Unfortunately by day 3 I was suffering from an ITBS (leg) injury and it got progressively worse until I couldn't ascend any more. We were around 25km from the car by the easiest route, but quite a bit closer if we could ascend some more.
Bearing in mind my pending military training, I decided to descend via the easiest route, with my two mates going over the next mountain to take the quick route to the car. Since their route was more dangerous it was best that they stuck together, or so we thought.
After a long and slow descent I came across as series of small cliffs - a set of stepped banks on the hillside - and took my bag off to negotiate them. In the bag was all my camping gear, plus my camera. During negotiating one of the steps the bag got out of control, I grabbed it with my ice axe but became unstable, and despite my best efforts it fell as I was trying to rectify the situation.
I watched as it bounced and tumbled a few feet, then it got faster, went higher, and before long it had burst open and the entire contents were barreling down the mountain bouncing 20-30ft in the air and disappearing from site.
Totally disheartened and left standing with one ice axe, one walking pole and the clothes on my back, I headed down the mountain and soon realised the gear had fallen into a gorge banked by rock faces and with a series of waterfalls running through it. The distant sight of my sleeping bag bobbing in a stream which I couldn't possibly climb to was the nail in the coffin - I accepted the gear was all gone.
I rendezvoused with my mates a few hours later, who ironically had descended the same route as me a bit later, having been thwarted by avalanche risk, and Andy was brave enough to jog back to the car whilst myself and Rob sat at the roadside sunbathing.
We stayed in a hostel that night and I caught the train the next morning, my two mates remained for a few more days.
I had since replaced the camera and went off to Sandhurst to do my training, and was at home on sick leave, casually browsing the internet when I came across an unmistakable photograph of the three of us in the sunshine on a snowy mountain top. It sent shivers down my spine, I couldn't believe it - the message above read 'Have you lost a D300 + Sigma 10-20?' and at that point my jaw thudded firmly on the floor boards.
I'm stunned and will be over the moon to get the pics back, as if I recall there were some memorable ones, and it makes a hell of a story.
Massive thanks to the gentleman who found the camera and had the good will to try and find it's owner, and to everybody who passed the message on including your magazine. I'm really grateful.
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