Day 11–Matkatamiba Canyon and a Threat of Rain

Day 11 began with a threat of rain, which by lunchtime  materialized into a cold, wet, rainy day. But, before that, we stopped for a quick hike up MatKatamibia (Matkat) Canyon.

Matkat is a slot canyon, which can become hazardous when rain brings a chance for a flash flood. Our trip leader, Matt, takes the threat of flash floods very seriously, and was nervous about having us hike Matkat. But, since it wasn’t raining yet……we hopped out to hike a little of the canyon.

We wore our rafting shoes, because we would hike through water, and our life jackets because we would only be a short while and Matt did not want to delay.

 

There were a couple of boulders and obstacles to climb over as we followed the canyon.

Note –The above picture, and the next couple of pictures were taken by Becky, who describes this hike with some wonderful photos in her blog post Day 11 part 1.

The small waterfall created a natural staircase, though a bit slippery……..

And a great photo op…….

We hiked back into the canyon just a little ways, as the canyon walls narrowed. Up another level, the walls narrowed where we would have been bracing ourselves between the walls to get through. Several people posed in ‘upside down’ positions between the walls just before Matt decided that we had gone far enough. We turned back and headed to the rafts. Our total hiking time had only been about 20 minutes. It probably was a good call to shorten the hike, as the rain began within an hour of being back on the water.