So, I may or may not have dunked my lense a second time. Yes, a second time. If you have followed me for a while then you might remember the tragedy that happened at Fall Creek Falls in Tennessee. If not then click here to go read all about what happened.  Trust me, its quite the story and it might make you shake your head if you are a lover of your DSLR like I am. Well, this time was slightly different and not as scary but still a huge bummer. 

There are these columns that I was trying to go see. I did some research before I went and people said that the hike was dangerous but beautiful. You were basically walking on the side of a canyon and you could do two different things. You could, one, follow the trail that was put out for you or two, you could follow the farmer's fence line all the way till you see the columns from the top of the canyon. I chose to go ahead and follow the trail that this farmer had put out. I thought, hey it might be easier than following some fence line. 

I learned real quick that I was completely wrong. 

First, I spent an hour walking around in this field trying to find where these damn markers were. In Iceland they use sticks and depending on where you want to go you had to follow the appropriate color to your destination. The first one you had to follow to go see this amazing waterfall was red. So I followed the red ones. Yet the red sticks were so far apart that you just had to guess which way was the right way. There were no arrows on the sticks to point you in the right direction. It was all luck. To make matters worse there were trails everywhere. I mean, everywhere. You would take one path and it would randomly fork off left or right and you just had to guess. For an entire hour, I was going in circles. I took off my shoes and socks to cross a stream (twice!), I climbed up the side of this river (literally climbed in my regular shoes, not a safe thing to do), and I even went to the edge of a cliff to try and see where I was going. 

After all that circling I finally saw where I was supposed to go. Unhappy and cursing I crossed the river, sucked it up and kept going. On the reviews, it said that the hike wasn't very long and it even had a picture of a waterfall that was the halfway point to the columns. At least I Had a visual guide. That was nice...for the most part. 

As I hiked down this path I came across the big waterfall. This is where the red sticks ended, of course, I had no idea because I can't read Icelandic so when I reached this waterfall, I thought, Oh, this is a nice view and took some photos. Then I trudged onward. Now, unaware that the sticks changed color to green I just basically frolicked through the brush on the side of the canyon. I got a half a mile and I saw a marker that was green. With great effort, I made my way to the marker and started on that trail. 

Now, let me say this. The trail was muddy, not well marked, and just plain dangerous. Beautiful, but like they said, dangerous. You could literally fall to your death if you didn't pay attention. So I took my time. After about an hour of making my way on the side of the canyon, I came to the supposed halfway point. I refilled my water bottle, took a second to take in the view and kept going. During this hike, I had my camera around my neck adn everything else in my bag for safety. I wasn't going to take a risk but to save time I kept the camera out so I wasn't stopping every few feet to get it out. 

Here comes my mistake. 

I get to this waterfall and it is raging. I'm looking for a clear path and the only one I see is to literally go straight into the water and just go for it. But me being me and not wanting to get my feet soaked and freezing attempted to cross the river by crossing rocks. Again, wrong move. I carefully started making my and as I was moving my foot two things happened. 

One: My entire bottom half of my body went into the river. 

Two: my camera swung around from my shoulder and the lens went in face first. Freaking out and quickly getting out of the river I took my camera apart and checked the physical camera. Turns out the physical camera was fine. The lense on the other hand...was covered in water. So taking off my secondary jacket I covered the lens, sighed and put it in my bag. Here we go again. 

Let's just say that I didnt see the columns and by the time I did turn around it was getting dark and I Had to find my way through the canyon side with my phone flashlight and my wits. I was freezing, upset and my luck was down. 

When I got to a campsite that night I had an idea though. I took my little portable heater and I took my lense and used it to dry it out overnight and by some miracle, I saved the lens a second time. So yes it still works and yes it is all good now but that day...was not a good day for me.