Rafting the Grand Canyon – Wildlife and the Mad MatKat!

 In true weekend fashion, the crew let us sleep in a bit on Saturday. It was 10/3, day 12 of our river adventure. Little did I know the “adventure” part was about to get exponentially more adventurous. Rog and I were back in the paddle boat and our morning was pretty mellow, going though Kanab rapid the longest rapid in the canyon. We stopped for lunch and a hike at Matkatamiba Canyon (MatKat for short).

Mellow water in the morning.

One of the surprises on this trip has been the amount of hiking we do. I’m pretty sure we hiked Every. Single. Day. (Except one and I’ll give you a good reason for that later. 😊) Some days we even did multiple hikes and the payoff was always worth it - incredible vistas, stunning waterfalls and rushing streams, intriguing caverns and formations, lush vegetation and more. The hikes themselves were a large part of the experience, not just a means to an end. A few were easy walks up dry streambeds, but most involved some serious UP, scrambling over boulders, carefully sidestepping along narrow ledges, wading through chilly water… but MatKat put them all to shame!   

The crew warned us it would be a wet hike with some scrambling, but they were confident they could help anyone who wanted to do it. We were warned to leave the “dry cameras” behind and make sure we had both hands free. Hmmm… this was sounding a little more ominous. There was an alternate route, but it was presented as a far less attractive option. I should have known there was evil afoot.

Ha! No sweat. So far anyway. 

MatKat started as a stroll up the canyon creek. Before long the water got deeper until we weren’t so much wading as nearly swimming up the trail. The first obstacle: climb over a slippery choke stone blocking the creek. My first attempt was a fail and backwards I went with a splash. After that I managed a less than graceful scramble up and over. The canyon narrowed and we splashed up the creek, sometimes walking along narrow ledges above the water. Then the canyon got narrower. And narrower. When the “trail” became a cleft, we did our best Spiderman impression and started walking along the walls. So far so good. Then we had to go up. But there was nothing to climb up, just narrow sheer canyon walls on both sides… and this is where things got real interesting.

 

This definitely qualifies as a wet hike! 
Getting over that choke stone is the first hurdle.

We proceed up the canyon.

Tom, Tim and Bode do their Spiderman impressions.

How many of you fine folks have heard of stemming? I bet at least somebody out there said, “Huh, what?” Well yeah, me too. No problem Mara says, just do EXACTLY what I tell you and you’ll be fine. Press your back against one wall and put your feet on the opposite wall at waist height. The technique involves bridging between two holds by applying force in opposing directions to brace yourself in position. But the kicker is you’re not actually holding onto anything, just pushing against it. That’s just wrong. But Mara was an excellent coach. Just pretend you’re sitting and push with your arms to move your butt up. Now move your feet up, first one side then the other. Ok, keep moving up and over. Up again and again. My voice quavering, “More UP?" An emphatic "Yes" is the reply. Oh shit! By the time my butt had levitated high enough to reach the next part of the trail, I was about 15 LONG feet above the bottom. After I was safely back on two feet, I snapped a couple quick pictures of Rog and Bode coming up behind me. No pics during the climb – no hands and no attention to spare. I was so far out of my comfort zone I couldn’t even see it in the distance. Lol.

Rog stemming up the canyon wall. 
Note: this is no fun with a bad hamstring!

 

Mara coaches Bode up and over. 
We did it!!

After our gravity defying stemming exercise,
this part was easy!

I must admit, the payoff at the end was pretty special. Tim hiked the alternate route with his guitar, so we had some great music in a beautiful setting. Mandela and Mara instructed us in the rewarding endeavor of butt dam building. Yes, we sat cheek to cheek (so to speak) and then created a flash flood for our toy kayaker to navigate and wash out the tiny rock town we built.  

Another amazing payoff at the end of an incredible hike.

 

Creating a butt dam so our intrepid tiny kayaker can ride the wave!

We used the alternate route to return to the boats. It was a little sketchy in places but I did not need to learn any new vocabulary to complete the hike! 

Rog scrambles down the ledges.

No stemming required! 

Back into the water. We got to wade coming and going.

In the afternoon we paddled through Upset Rapid (an 8 out of 10) which was the biggest white water challenge Rog and I did in the paddle boat. Kudos to Mandela for coaching us through a successful run! I’m going to try and insert a 15-second video clip, we’ll see if it works. If not, trust me it was an fun run!

 

Camp in the evening was at Lower Ledges (river mile 152). It was very different, less sandy beach and more stone ledges with a small spring cascading over the edge. Mandela showed us how to start a fire by twirling a stick. The girl has mad skills. Although Mark showed his chops too with an awe inspiring display of shadow puppetry on the opposite canyon wall. Lol. “I got more than dogs,” he said and proceeded to do battling moose, snakes, T-Rex and more. Who needs TV?

The lovely spring at Lower Ledges camp.

Mandela makes fire. More scenes from camp.

When we arrived at camp, we were greeted by another Big Horn ram with a ewe and yearling in tow. This guy stayed far enough away that he was no threat. The abundance of wildlife is another thing that I hadn’t anticipated. We probably saw >50 Big Horn Sheep throughout the trip. Patrick and Gwen saw one of the native pink rattlesnakes. Gwen said it was very pretty and I’d loved to have seen one – from a safe distance! We also saw mule deer and even sign of the elusive ringtail cat. Apparently they are accomplished camp robbers and have taken fruit right off the boats even with the crew asleep onboard. Speaking of camp robbers, there were plenty of ravens about, along with many other birds including a surprising number blue herons, ibis and the lovely canyon wren. It was a sweet moment when Rog heard a canyon wren trilling and said the song just made him feel happy.

The Big Horn sheep were curious about us too. 

 

We sighted lizards, blue herons and mule deer. 

We only saw footprints left by the elusive ringtail cat. 
Photo of the fruit-stealing culprit complements of the NPS website.

One of my favorites were the bats. Every evening and every morning they would flitter and swoop just over our heads hunting insects. They must have done a stellar job because we were never once bothered by mosquitoes or other bugs on the trip. Well, I take that back. The fire ants were some pesky little guys. You had to be very careful choosing a campsite, tossing your sleeping pad on a nest of those guys would have been a painful experience. We did have another unwelcome guest in our campsite – a scorpion. I’ve heard that scorpions glow under ultraviolet light, so I brought along my blacklight flashlight. I’ve searched high and low and never found one to test the theory, UNTIL I flicked it on at our campsite and just a foot from my pillow was a scorpion! And yes he did glow in the UV light, he also took off like a flash and thankfully did not return. Although I was especially careful to keep all my appendages tucked into the sleeping bag that night.

 

These guys were not welcome in my campsite!

We began the next morning (Sunday, 10/4, Day 13) with yoga on the ledges. Mandela decided to put together an all girl paddle boat. She put Bode in charge of steering and calling out strokes (with a little coaching). We had a blast.

 

Morning yoga.

All-Girl Paddle Power!

Paddle High-Five!

Another beautiful day on the water.

Rog rode with Nancy on her oar boat. We stopped for lunch and a hike at National Canyon. Nothing as crazy as MatKat, but every hike has been amazing in some way. I especially enjoyed the trees in this canyon.

 

National Canyon.

Survivors in a harsh environment.

Love the side canyon hikes!

Every hike needs a challenge!

I went with Mark and Rog's approach.
Let's just watch the crazies. Lol.  

We made camp at the Cove (river mile 175). In the morning we got gorgeous views of the canyon with the moon still showing at first light.

 

View from Cove Camp.

The moon is still visible as light washes the canyon walls.

First light reflects on the water.

I am hoping to wrap up our amazing adventure in one more post. We'll see if I can manage it!