Found Ski: What would you do?

Today while going in to ski Mount Ruth I found a ski that looked like it had tumbled down from somewhere.  It was down a ridge below a trail and where was no sign of the other ski.

I took the ski, put it in a more prominent place and stuck it in the snow.  Assuming that if it was a recent loss someone would see it easier.

On the way out it was still there.  I loaded it up on my pack and figured I'd post the find here and get it returned to it's rightful owner.

As I was skiing out with the extra board on my back I came across a Ranger headed up.  He said 'Hey, that's my ski, what are you doing with my ski', obviously pissed and accusatory.  I explained where I found it, that there was no other ski around and that I figured I'd carry it out to try to get it back to it's rightful owner.  He said he had it stashed up there (from his last trip?) so he didn't have to carry it in.

In my situation, what would you have done?

Anyway, it was a great day regardless....


(edited to remove potentially inflammatory comments )

Why would he stash one ski and not both? Did he have have the other near the one you found? Maybe he's awesome at touring on one ski? Hopefully you asked him.

Hmmm... sometimes folks separate their skis with the idea that nobody would steal a single ski....

However, stashing something on an open slope is a pretty iffy thing as just related. This ranger would do better to leave a note with his gear.

If gear is on the main trail, I usually leave it there, hoping someone will find it on the way out.

Hey! I stash water bottles behind rocks.... so hands off my water!

stashing skis seems odd to me. Just the water damage (rusty edges for instance) to a ski just sitting there in warm snow would seem to be bad for it If it was a pair of skis then definitely i would leave them alone. But a single ski there when going up...and at the end of the day going down i would also assume was someones missing ski and would pack it out and post/ask around to try to find the owner.

If it was stashed then the Ranger should have done a lot better hiding it as i know quite a few greedy people who would see it and go ooo free binding replacement or ooo free ski.

Isn't gear caching technically illegal?

/rant/ The climbing rangers are cool, but it seems that a lot of the other folks who work in that NP think that they own it and that they can do whatever they want.  If you were caught stashing your skis, they would probably write you a citation for littering and confiscate them.  Stashing gear for extendend periods of time out of laziness (not because you're on a climb, etc) and expecting it to be there upon your return is mountain weaksauce.  Don't know if that's the case here.  Keep in mind that this is coming from someone who recently got a citation and was kicked out of that stupid park  .  /rant/