Caching for two near a Presidential Palace.

We arrive at Swamp Point the day before our trip is scheduled. Starting tomorrow we will spend two nights atop Powell Plateau. It will probably be a dry camp, so we plan to day-hike a water cache over to the plateau. By “we” I mean me.

It’s getting late so I load up my pack with about three gallons and double time down and up about two miles to the plateau, and stash the water. Back down at Muav Saddle I stop to check out the old Park Service structure.

A tiny patrol cabin was built here just below the north end of the saddle back in 1925, apparently marking the site where President Teddy Roosevelt had camped and hunted mountain lions a decade prior to construction. It’s a creepy old cabin partitioned into two very small rooms. The main room has some rusted bed frames and a crude wooden desk, atop which sit the cabin’s journal and a few arrowheads alongside some fossilized rocks. The smaller “bedroom” at the back has a poster picture of the President, thus christening this wooden relic as “Teddy’s Cabin.” There is also a small pile of construction debris in the corner.

I’m back at the North Rim in time for cocktail hour and camp chairs, a serious Canyon luxury. This is kind of weird camping within Park boundaries and having my truck parked right next to the rim, not to mention the ice cold beer in the cooler. The day is capped by yet another spectacular Canyon sunset.

Day 2 – Swamp Point to Muav Saddle:

The competition for our demise – lightning vs. venom.

As we pack to leave, previously distant thunder is now much closer than I’m comfortable with. Just as we’re about to shoulder packs the air around us flashes brilliantly white, simultaneously with loudest BOOM I’ve ever heard. I can feel electricity pulsating through the air as instinct drives us to the ground with a primitive scream of fear. A lightning bolt has surged and exploded directly over us.

After a few seconds I regain my composure and say something to the effect of, “let’s get the fuck out of here now!” We haul ass down towards Muav saddle as the rain starts. Thunder roars once more overhead and Zilly ditches her trekking pole for fear of its potential electrical conductivity. I pick it up and am now carrying two poles, unable to stop thinking if I am crazy for doing so.

We make it to the saddle and rest, feeling a little safer for the moment. Zilly wants a snack before resuming the uphill trek to Powell Plateau. The plan was for me to carry most of the gear, while she would carry the food, but there’s a slight problem. She has accidentally left all the food in the truck. Shit. I’m kidding myself if we can make it to the plateau by now, but I hustle back solo and retrieve our grub, spooking a couple mule deer off the trail.

By the time I return there’s little daylight left, so we decide to make camp on the saddle near the cabin. Then all hell breaks loose again as the tempest proceeds to unleash in the most terrifying lightning storm I’ve ever seen. We huddle inside the cabin on the floor for about an hour during a constant pounding of rain, lightning, and thunder that feels powerful enough to pulverize our flimsy wooden shelter. I actually pray that we will remain safe.

Eventually the storm begins to fade as lightning bolts brighten the cabin’s interior less and less with each strike. I start giving in to the hope that we might actually survive the night. At that moment when I start letting some feeling of relief take hold, Teddy’s Cabin fills with a most distinguished and unmistakable reptilian noise. One long and fear inducing rattle. You have got to be kidding me. We have taken refuge in the only somewhat dependable storm shelter for miles, which also happens to be the home of at least one rattlesnake.

Using my headlamp I immediately assess the security of our main room. No snakes and no holes for outside access, only a bothersome gap at the bottom of the door to Teddy’s room. I make a brief inspection of that room from the doorway, and the pile of debris is unsettling, so I close the door and reinforce the gap at the bottom. We are left with two options. The snake is in Teddy’s room, under the pile of debris, or under the cabin. That leaves us again with two options. Sleep in here with the door secured or outside with the potential of rain, lightning, and venomous reptiles. Obviously we choose the former.

Day 3 – Muav Saddle to Swamp Point:

The ghost of Canyon past.

Considering everything we went through yesterday, I got some decent sleep time. In the morning one of the cabin’s previously shut windows is wide open. Teddy’s ghost must have snuck in or out during the night. I never heard him. Never heard that rattler either. An inspection under the cabin from a safe distance reveals nothing, but rattlesnakes are camouflaged for a reason.

Given yesterday’s debacle we decide to scuttle a night on the plateau, and just return to the rim. Back in Flagstaff I learn that yesterday’s lightning storm started at least three fires on the North Rim, including one actually on Powell Plateau. Perhaps we had good Canyon karma by not making it up there.