David comments on a bit of his experience coming to King Solomon's cave. It is hard to know where to start about King Solomon cave. I vividly remember the phone call from Adam when he told me the cave he discovered contained huge crystals larger then cars and unique hollow sword looking speleothems among other pretty incredible things. Well to make a long story short I was every bit as impressed as he was of the significant cave discovery of King Solomon Cave. I appreciate the opportunity I had along with many other cavers to document, survey and explore King Solomon Cave. It truly is a unique and special cave that I got to experience with great friends and a memory I will cherish. As our survey came to an end and photography encompassed a full-bodied narrative of the cave, immediate protection efforts became our primary scope of work. Indeed we had over 10 people in the know about KS cave and the probability of someone finding out about the cave was and has always been a concern. The efforts came together with countless hours of work, documenting, discussions, and even tiered levels of trust within the need to know arenas of individuals. There were concerns of who to trust and unfortunately, that was a reality that we all had to suffer from.
Jump-up canyon is a excellent connecting tributary to the kanab creek system and the respective canyons around the region. Here you can gain access from Indian Hollow from the east or from Kanab Creek from the west.
Jumpup canyon has a straightforward hike through non technical redwall narrows which is rather extensive in length and a very beautiful and scenic approach to rattlesnake and kirks chasm canyons.
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Matkatambia canyon is a remote non-technical canyon located within the vast reaches of the Grand Canyon.
Access is on the river with rafters making a stop right before the rapids of matkat or a technical
canyoneering trip down 150 mile canyon and a river crossing to gain a trail leading to matkat.
Our group went from the technical canyon of 150 mile canyon and made the river crossing over to
the trail leading to matkat.
The trail is pretty well defined once you are able to locate the trail itself.
Once you hike around to matkat you are greeted with some beautiful narrow canyon that drops into a incredible layer of muav limestone.
Spring water feeds the lower muav of Matkat and creates a beautiful layer of slides that are non technical and eat up hours of time with the fun you can have in the narrows.
Our ambitions were slowed by the amazing lower matkat narrows and ended up spending a day in matkat canyon.
Right from the river the hair combed walls of the muav have a distinctive appeal to them as the
weakness within the rock is horizontal in nature and looks like swirling linear patterns.
The slides start a few hundred up the canyon and people can literally slide down the canyon in sections to the river.
There even was a pink flamingo floating around!
After some hours here we hiked up matkat to see the beautiful temple butte formation and made a casual
and quite fast trek up to the confluence.
The hike up did not have any major obstructions until you get just before the confluence.
This is where you have to go left up canyon to get around the boulders.
A few of us made it to the confluence and headed back to lower matkat and eventually went back
to camp.
We had aspirations to go to olo and panameta canyons which turned out to not work out
We headed back down to get some afternoon lighting in the lower section of matkat and made our way back over to the hotel penthouse to prepare for our exit out of the canyon.
The following day we headed out of 150 mile canyon and made it back to the rim just as the sun was setting.
This is a fantastic canyon to visit and one of my all time favorite grand canyon canyons that I have had a chance to visit.
I am looking forward to next years trip where we will also combine this same trip with panameta and olo canyons.
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