After work Friday afternoon we drove to the South Rim and camped, in an actual camp ground. We haven't done that in years! It was really weird sleeping that close to other people. Having a picnic table to cook on was pretty cool though. I spent some time looking like a crazy person, talking to a pair of ravens, but I was rewarded by one of them preening out a feather and dropping it for me. The boys lit a little fire, felt very manly, and we went to bed.
Cue 4 goddamn am when we got up and got moving. I dropped Tim off at the trailhead, he started running and I started driving. Havoc was unreasonably wide awake and talkative, which, just, ugh. Vermillion Cliffs is a gorgeous drive, but less so when a sleep deprived 5 year is rambling nonstop in the back seat.
Tims truck is fast and I speed a lot, so we got to the North Rim just about when we expected a very tired Tim to be arriving. We went to the lodge and waiting. I watched a massive cloud across the canyon open up and start pouring rain on the South Rim, and thanked my stars that it wasn't at the North Rim, at which point it immediately headed to the North Rim with a vengeance. Clouds move fast when they've got an agenda. HC and I hunkered down in the truck to wait. Then it started hailing. Hailing. Thankfully, just then, Tim arrived, safe and sound and mostly dry, thanks to a Swiss couple who drove him to the lodge from the trailhead.
We had greasy pizza for breakfast, and headed into the forest to escape the rain and take a nap.
After napping (I think I'm the only one who actually napped) we headed back for my part of the adventure. I'm a huge Ed Abbey fan, and my favorite of his books is Black Sun. Once I realized that Abbey actually manned the fire lookout he wrote about in the book, it became a life goal to visit the tower and cabin. That was 5 years ago. Finally, Tim managed to find it for me just in time for his run (I think he knew he'd have to give me a damn good reason to get up that early, and it worked). We set off down the trail with great excitement, which turned to trepidation, and then crushing disappointment when we realized we'd gone the wrong damn way on the trail and wasted several hours and were all too tired and sore to get there today. So we made camp, and I made dinner (which also was a crushing disappointment, I was so very full of fail this weekend.) and we went to bed.
The next morning, we got up, I made grilled cheese bacon and avocado sandwiches for breakfast to make up for dinner, and we set off the right way this time. The trail was easy, gently sloping upward, through fir and aspen groves, the sun was shining, the birds were singing, Tim was limping, and Havoc was whining. Had we all been 100% I think we'd have made it in 20 minutes, but the shambles we were in arrived at the cabin 45 minutes later and oh my god it was the coolest thing ever.
I have an absurd love for things ruined and decrepit, and this cabin was just perfect.
There was a dead porcupine under the table. A birds nest in the toilet paper holder in the outhouse. Peeling paint and missing door panels and a rusted out bed frame against the back of the house. I was in heaven.
Then Tim made me climb the tower.
More technically in heaven, I guess, but a lot more scared. I don't do heights.
I don't look nearly as nauseous and terrified as I was.
Abbey carved his name into the door when he left. I mean.
Finally seeing that cabin and tower was damn near a spiritual experience for me. The rest of this summer can suck (and probably will, all things considered), and I'll call it a win.
God, Havoc is loud.
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