Lost Hat - Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

Nymph Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

If you look closely at the bottom of this photo, you might notice a strange looking lily pad. The reason that it looks strange is because it is not a lily pad, but rather my hat. I was on a hike up to shoot Nymph Lake, Dream Lake and Emerald Lake. About halfway to Dream Lake, the weather turned south with rain and winds. By the time I got to Dream Lake, it was a downpour. It had been a bad day anyway as my tripod head got damaged, so I decided to take my losses and head back to the car. On the way back down, the weather cleared up a b,it so I stopped at Nymph Lake to take a couple of shots. A gust of wind came and there went my hat in the lake. Of course it was out of reach. I waited about an hour for it to move, but the wind had totally died. I headed back to my car and reported the lost hat (it was an expensive Tilley hat) knowing that I would never see it again. Heading back into town, I found a store and purchased the identical hat for the rest of my trip. 

I thought that it would be a funny story along with this photo of my hat floating in the lake. I was wrong. I was home about a month and I got a text from someone in Arizona. He had found my hat (it had my phone number inside it) and he was willing to mail it back to me as long as I paid the postage. Now I have a backup hat (just like a backup camera) in case I lose the new one.