I spent a week hiking around Lassen a number of years ago, went up to the top of the peak and all around a bunch of other trails. Like most national parks you can get in traffic jams driving around but once you get a mile or so in the backcountry you hardly see anybody.
I found a fairly decent Nikon camera with a large lens on it laying to the side of a trail a few miles in, I stood and called for awhile but nobody responded. I went ahead and put it on top of a tree trunk nearby figuring if it came out of somebody’s pack they may come along looking for it. A few hundred yards later I found fresh bear tracks making me wonder if it was dropped while they got chased. I went by a ranger station later letting them know about the camera/tracks nearby, they took my number but I never heard anything.
Stopped in Willow Creek and spent some time in Six Rivers after that, no sign of BF during the whole trip unfortunately.