Day 11 - Part 1 :: Mile 145 to Matkatamiba Canyon

Saturday, September 27th would be a slow, easy day on the river. We would travel 20 miles (from mile 145 to mile 165), stop for one hike, go through four small rapids and one biggie.

As we left the 145 Mile campsite, the clouds that had moved in the previous day were still hanging around. The sun would occasionally make its presence known but never stuck around for very long.

We would go through a small rapid half a mile after leaving the campsite then float in calm waters for three miles before stopping at Matkatamiba (aka Matkat) Canyon for a hike.

Matkat is a slot canyon that provides unique challenges the further you proceed. Matt was concerned about the weather. It looked like it could rain and he didn't want us to get caught in a flash flood , so we would only go a little ways into the canyon.

This was another hike where we wore our rafting shoes rather than hiking boots. In most places the water was only a few inches deep. Shown above was the first "obstacle" a short distance into the hike. It was a little awkward, and it wasn't pretty, but we all made it up to the next level.

At the third  (or fourth ?) level the canyon makes another turn...

to some slippery steps up to the next level...

At this point, DJ and I decided not to go any further.  Matt said they weren't going to go too far (as it turned out they were only gone 5 minutes and the entire hike lasted a little over 20 minutes). Anyway, I wanted to take some pictures!

So I turned around and went back the way we had come.

An optical illusion? With the twists and turns it's hard to tell where it really goes.

This section required us to climb up/down the "steps" on the left to get around the little waterfall. Here the water was about knee deep.

On his way back, DJ inadvertently provided some idea of the width and height of the canyon.

The rest of the group caught up with us quickly but they took it slow going down these high steps.

A few minutes later we were back at the rafts ready to continue our journey. That's Matkatamiba Rapid in the background, it's only rated a 2 on the Grand Canyon scale.

Justin is moving on down the river.

We still had 17 miles to go and a few more rapids to run.

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If you're curious, like I was, about what we missed out on because the hike was cut short, just Google "Matkatamiba Canyon" and see for yourself!

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Note: The page Grand Canyon Raft Trip lists all of my posts published about this Grand Adventure!

Published under a Creative Commons License.
Becky Wiseman, "Day 11 - Part 1 :: Mile 145 to Matkatamiba Canyon," Kinexxions, posted November 8, 2014 (http://kinexxions.blogspot.com/2014/11/day-11-part-1-mile-145-to-matkatamiba.html : accessed [access date])