But before that here is how everything began!

Kids, I’m gonna tell you an incredible story,
the story of how I met your GoPro.

Episod 1: Last Day of the trip

A few weeks ago, August 20th 2014

It had been a week that we were travelling around North California in our amazing Campervan with Audrey. As you imagine, all our great memories are saved in my GoPro.

The last day of our road trip was In Yosemite, and we started with a trail to Vernal Falls:

• parking is 1 mile away, just a warm up
• return trail is 5 miles (8km), about 3.5h
• elevation gain is 1000 ft (300m), it stretchs the legs
• I take my iPhone and the GoPro, it’s useful to record great moments

On the last meters it seems that you were just going vertical, but after an hour and a half we arrived at the bottom of the Vernal Falls.

Episod 2: “I lost The GoPro”

Audrey suggested we get going if we were to have time to do other trails.
So we started our way back. But I noticed big rocks surrounding the main pool. And as a big Kid I WANTED to jump!

Audrey didn’t want me to, saying that we didn’t have time, that we had a long way back, and that the water was cold. I insisted.
She was upset but accepted. I wanted to capture that moment so I double-recorded it. I took my GoPro in my hand and asked Audrey to film me with the iPhone.

I Jumped. I screamed, and as soon as I touched the surface of the water I could feel two things: the water that was freezing my body and the GoPro that went of the tripod I was holding.

It was freezing. I first tried to dive and opened my eyes under the water but I couldn’t see anything. It was at least 3 meters deep with rocks under.
I tried to ask other GoPro users around me, if they had the GoPro app so we could use it and check on the phone screen if we saw mine.
- I don’t have my password
- the connection doesn’t work under water
- Sorry, I guess you won’t find it
were the answers I got.
A french couple was using a camera that goes under water with a telescopic arm. I asked them and tried.
But they had no sim card so I could film maximum 4 seconds, watch the video, delete it and do it again….It was hopeless.
People around were looking at me as a desperate guy “you ll never find it, you should give up”. I was so cold, and we hadn’t eaten so we finally decided to move on.

We basically had 2 options:

— Give up, forget about the GoPro, but also forget about all the photos and videos we took during the week and try to enjoy the rest of our last day together. — Persevere, try to find goggles in the middle of Yosemite, jump under the water and hope that the GoPro is still here….

I definitely took option 2!

Episod 3: Let’s find goggles

….in the middle of a Yosemite trail

We began our way back and asked every single person if they had goggles.

Here were a few answers:
- NO
- No sorry
- gog… what?
- goggles, why?
and my favorite
- Ah actually usually I have some, but not today

I met a Ranger and asked if she could help me.
“you know that we don’t advise to go in the water, people die every year!”
OK I think I’ll keep marching on.

We continued our way back and after a 2.5 miles down and an other mile to the parking we took the campervan and drove to Yosemite Village.

I went to the supermarket : “we don’t have goggles, but there is a sport shop next door”

A sport shop, they must have goggles! They don’t, only hiking stuff.

I was told to go to the next village: Yosemite Lodge, there was a bigger supermarket. That was my last chance.

So I went back to the car, drove to Yosemite Lodge, and ran to the supermarket. Same story, no goggle…

I left the supermarket and was about to give up when in front of me I saw …. a sign saying

Swimming pool! That was my chance!

I ran in there and on the way I spotted him, a little kid with his sister. And guess what he had in his hands….

the nicest goggles I had ever seen!

I stopped them and asked if they had goggles (of course they had). As soon as I asked it, he hid the goggles in his back and said a wonderful “NO”. After 2 minutes of explanation, I understood that they didn’t speak english, and were afraid of me. So I left them and went to the swimming pool.

I negotiated with the cashier to let me go in for free, asked a cople of people but answers were “no”.

I stepped back and…

I got the goggles!

Episod 4: The Ascension

I didn’t know if it was a good thing cause the way was still long and the probability was low. But I had solved part of the problem.

I ran back to the car, Audrey was waiting. We drove back to the trail.

Bad luck, the road was closed saying that the parking was full and we couldn’t pass. I didn’t care, we took the reverse way feeling like true rebels.

We parked the van and started trekking back in the park.

We walked the 1 mile on the road, got to the trail. Did the trail for the 2nd time — 2,5 miles up. As we were walking up we could recognize the same people we had crossed on our way down a few hours ago.

They should have thought “who can be stupid to do the same trail twice in a row?!” → me☺

You could feel it was the end of the day. The way up was hard and it took us another hour and a half to get back to the fall.

Episod 5: Find the GoPro

When we arrived at the pool, there were just a few people. I went down the surface of the water and let a couple jumped.

When I heard them screaming, it confirmed that the water hadn’t warmed up. But I couldn’t go backward. I took off my clothes and left my bag to Audrey. Now it was even cold outside, my body was shaking because of the efforts and the lack of food.

So I tried something. Since this guy was already in the water, I asked him if he could check for me. He was not really enthusiastic about the idea and politely answered “I think you should go first, check, and if you are too tired or freezing I will go after you”.

Ok Well, I guess I’ll have to do it by myself.

I put the goggles on and jumped in the water. Muscles were dynamited by the cold. I swam to the middle of the pool, where I assessed I had jump a few hours ago.

My first instinct was just to check if I could see it. I dove to check under the water, looking for my GoPro. Guess what?

There it was!

It was something like surnatural, I could clearly see it, just in front of me. It was laid on a rock, 3 meters down me, it seemed that someone put it here on purpose and it hadn’t moved it since.

I floated back and said :
“It’s here!, I can see it, i can see it !” I felt so happy, I didn’t even feel the cold, I found it!

I mean …I saw it…. now I had to dive and get it. I took a large breath and dove swimming down slowly to the GoPro and grabbed it

“I HAVE it! I found the GoPro!”

So you think that is the story of how I met the GoPro but it’s not over… “WHAT !”. Would you relax I’m getting to it!
So I grabbed the GoPro and as I was going to resurface…I saw something else 1 meter down, in the dark, behind a rock …

Guess what, it was …
an other GoPro!

I had pretty much no air, and I could resurface and dove again but I had so much energy and excitement that I went straightforward. I tried to swim deeper grab it once, but missed it, the second try was the good one!

The way up to the surface was tough but when I took my head out of the water I was so happy. I got my 2 arms out of the water, holding one GoPro in each hand, screaming victory!

I went out of the water and snap out of it! Finally I made it!

Episod 6: Let’s find him

To sum it up: I lost my GoPro in a stupid way!

BUT I didn’t give up (maybe it was even more stupid). I walked down all the way to come back with goggles and found not one but two GoPros, and the 2nd one was even better than mine (it’s a Hero 3+ black edition)

So now again, I have 2 choices:
- Keep this GoPro, so now I have 2!
- Try to give it back to its owner and think about the feeling he will have when he read that story.

I definitely go for option 2 (even if with option 1, I could have made 3D videos).

So the story is not over! Now we need to find who’s this GoPro belongs to!

Help me to spread this article by sharing it and together we’ll all write the next episode of How I met your GoPro!
If you want to see a few videos of that story you can watch the soap here:

Here are some clues to find him:

Other facts:

According to the timestamps and sounds of the video
- the GoPro was lost a day before mine, on the 19th of August
- This Guy started to shoot some videos on the 16th of August.
- He was mainly in LA and Yosemite with 2 other friends (guys)
- One is Bittish, and I think they all are
- They rented a White Hyundai
- One of the boys (not the owner) is called Jimmy (I guess)

You can contact me on twitter @vctrio if you hear anything!

Let’s do this! Let’s find him! share this!

Episod 7: What I learned

Here are a few things I have learned

— When you use a GoPro, even if it is fixed, have a double security string — Always have goggles when you go on trail next to a river — If you believe in what you do, don’t give up, go for it! — Not to try, is the best way not to succeed

It’s just a small adventure I lived, but it marked me and it reflects something I try to put into practice in my daily entrepreneur life: When you want you can.

Without necessarily being extrem and stubbornness, perseverance an determination help getting you to your end though one way or another.

Or as Sir Nelson Mandel simply says

Episode 8: To be continued….

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https://medium.com/p/6c0de5b5548c

If something similar happened to you (you found or lost a GoPro):
Go to howimetyourgopro.com tell your story, share it with #HowIMetYourGoPro and we’ll help you.