After checking out Mather Point and the Visitor’s Center, I headed to Mather Campground.  In order to save money I decided to camp for $18/night rather than get a hotel room that would cost in the 100s.  I knew the park would be swarmed with people in June and July so I reserved my camp sight a couple of months ago.

After checking in I found my sight and found the perfect spot – away from the picnic table where there are probably ants and other bugs, in a relatively flat area, and uphill from where I could see other tents had been pitched to avoid some residual mud.

As I was in the middle of pitching my tent, a freak rainstorm popped up.  My fellow campers raced for shelter, but I couldn’t just leave my half-pitched tent up like that because I knew it would get flooded on the inside, so I wallowed in the dirt a bit and got it done quickly.  The rain stopped after about 10 minutes and I changed clothes and checked out my work.  The tent, thankfully, was perfectly dry on the inside!  My clothes, however, were soaked all the way through and covered in dirt.  I changed, left the wet ones out to dry on my car since it was the only relatively dry place and went out to explore and sight see.

Next up…the South Rim trail!