Just around the river bend

In my last trip to this area my buddy and I stopped at Zion National Park for a quick scouting trip we noticed the Narrows. We decided to return the following year and do only the half day from bottom to top route. As the day approached rooms booked we looked up what people were bringing and trying to figure out the type of shot and the minimum amount of gear we had to bring for the shot.
Gear wise it seem simple:

• Something wide (24mm or wide) 
• Polarizer to deal with reflections on the water 
• Tripod to keep things stable 
• Camera. 

 I've carry much more on other hikes. The hard part was what we needed to hike the route. From our research, we were advised to have water socks, water shoes, and a hiking stick at the very least. The rest of the gear would be the typical items when taking on a 6-8 hr hike. I decided to put my SLR in a drybag with microfiber clothes at the bottom and then put the drybag in my hiking backpack and strap on my tripod to the side of the backpack.
The week of the trip a big storm came and really poured into the valley. The ideal water flow I think was 50 cfs or cubic feet per second of water and the park will close off the hike if the waters reached 120 cfs, at one point I saw the numbers reach 2000 cfs. On the day of the hike I believe the water flow was around the low 70s cfs. Temperature wise, when we started the hike it was in the 30s. I wore shorts and 3 layers of on top with a windbreaker, none of which was taken off, it never got warm enough. We got on the first shuttle into the park at 6am, the shuttle took about 40mins to get to our stop, Temple of Sinewava. When we got there it was dark, a light might be useful at this point but not necessary.

Most of the hike was walking through water. No special techniques, we just got to a point we saw interesting and did our setup, bracketed our shots, I did a 7 shot bracket, packed up and moved forward. I ended up setting up my tripod in the water most of the time, the currently didn't seem to be strong enough to shake the camera during the longer exposure. But it was a real pain to pull open the backpack, open the drybag, pull out the camera, take the shots and put it all back. Eventually we just didn't put the camera away.

With the storm that came in, it really brought along a lot of dirt and mud. The river looked like chocolate milk which made the hike difficult. The water levels were typically knee high and at the highest is at crouch level if you choose the right path, higher if you didn't. Each step was blind and the current was strong enough to move my foot about a foot of where I had intended to place it. The hiking stick came in really handy at this point, besides stability, we were able to feel out what's in front of us. The path wasn't flat and smooth, its lined with dips, bumps, sand and big rocks. Because of the elevated water levels there wasn't many areas to sit and have lunch, we spent most of the 8hrs on our feet. We eventually made it out of there and for the distance we hiked it was more tiring than we thought.

Clean up of the tripod has been the most difficult. Since the legs were in the water so much it picked up a lot of sand and the twist action of the locks sound gritty. I'm not sure how to fix that. I've broken down the legs of tripod and cleaned each part and reassembled them back. I've sprayed lube at the locks but it hasn't totally taken away the gritty sound. Might be something I'll have to live with because I don't want to afford another tripod anytime soon. I haven't started trying to clean the hiking stick yet and I haven't been able to completely collapse it either.

Things I learned

• Don't forget the lunch meat in the hotel room 
• Water shoes, water socks and the hiking stick is a must 
• Spend the extra money and buy the hiking sticks with the padded handles instead of renting because the renting sticks are just wooden sticks. They were not comfortable to my buddies hand at the end of the