It was a hard, wet trek into the off-trail wilderness of the Columbia Gorge, where the bellow of 100-foot waterfalls drown out modern civilization.

Ethan Field stopped to catch his breath and spotted the corner of a metal object buried among the riverbank's rocks.

He shouted toward his hiking partner Ron Campbell: "I think I found a whiskey flask!"

"OK. Nice," Campbell yelled back.

When Field pulled the object out of the mossy muck, however, he realized he had actually discovered a Cold War-era relic from the other side of the world -- a vintage camera inscribed with the words "Made in East Germany/U.S.S.R. occupied."

Two weeks after their discovery, the two Hood River men are trying find out the story of the Exakta camera.

"How did it get there?" Campbell, an AT&T field network specialist, said during an interview with The Oregonian. "It's a huge mystery that we really want to solve."

Field, who captured the moment of discovery on his GoPro camera, has disassembled the Exakta and cleaned away much of the much and rust. But the corrosion remains.

The camera, made specifically for left-handed users, appears to date back to the 1950s.

The men have sent the film canister to a Portland camera shop, hoping some images can be recovered. But Campbell said the chances are slim, especially since the back of the camera was cracked and open. The film canister was also punctured.

Mysterious camera found in the Gorge 8 Gallery: Mysterious camera found in the Gorge

Friends and people who follow the two men on Instagram have speculated about what could be on the film. Sasquatch? A Cold War spy mission terribly wrong? A historical figure?

"It would great to get even a piece of an image," Campbell said. "A trail, a person, anything would be nice."

Follow Ethan Field on Instagram @TheFieldProjects and Ron Campbell @EmergingEye.

Update: The plot thickens. One of my Twitter followers notes that Jimmy Stewart used the same camera in "Rear Window."

@josephjrose There was a US importer for Exaktas back in the day. Jimmy Stewart used one in "Rear Window". https://t.co/YZ2DDyeKW5 — brx0 ❄ ❄️❆ ❄️ ❅ ❄️❄ ❄️ ❆ ❄️ ❅ ❄️ (@brx0) February 3, 2016

Jimmy Stewart with his Exakta in 1954's "Rear Window." (Paramount Pictures)

So, it's Jimmy Stewart's camera?

Or is it D.B. Cooper's camera?

-- Joseph Rose

503-221-8029

jrose@oregonian.com

@josephjrose