CF Card Failure (Sierra Nevada)—Tuesday, August 15, 2006

C-8080 Screen, Marin County  2006

(from Mike's backpacking journal):

7:00—Sunrise.

8:00—Packing up. As I’m trying to get everything pushed into the main compartment of my backpack, I hear an odd sort of pattering noise off to my right. I turn to see two coyotes running headlong towards my camp site. As I swivel, they dart by me at a distance of 15 feet, plunge down into the gully past my campground, then scoot up a hill and out of sight. I must say, they paid not the slightest bit of attention to me.

9:15—Breakfast and Motrin.

10:30— Made it up to the dam at Waugh Lake around 10:30. Taking photos, as is my wont, when the Compact Flash card went out (I think.) Instead of the image being previewed, there appeared a card setup message on the LCD screen. Replaced battery, no luck. Took out card, put back in, no luck. After some thought, tried to reformat, but no luck. Message actually doesn’t make sense, since of course I formatted the card when I first got it. And the fact that the camera won’t reformat it makes me really suspect that the card is somehow damaged. Don’t see how that could be.

I contemplated continuing on . . . for a few minutes anyway. But of course, I need a camera. First time I’ve had to shorten a trip due to equipment failure, I think.

12:00 PM—An unfortunate and unforeseen return to my first camp!

3:30—Drinking a cup of decaff. coffee. Cool in the shade—65º. A brilliant blue sky. Right now, I’m feeling drained. Hard to describe. Very tired . . . already took a nap. I’m hoping it’s the card and not the camera. I like the camera (an Olympus 8080) a lot.


(Update: Of course it was the CF card. Other cards worked just fine and I went on to take many great photos with the C-8080. Never could retrieve any data from that card . . .)