After having a breakfast at the diner overlooking the Bridge Of The Gods I walked across the impressive structure and back to the trail. Ahead lay Mt. Adams. I hiked and camped with Bodybag, Mouse and Jangles a couple of times.
At Blue lake I was having an early dinner when a few Grey Jays showed up. They flew from the trees, right out in front of me and seemed to want to steal some food right out of my pot in my hands! After a couple of attempts, with me swatting at them, they quit.
I got to Trout Lake on Friday. After buying supplies and grabbing a breakfast burrito I started heading to the road to hitch out. There was a fire burning on the south side of Adams and a guy from the forest service said the trail might be closed soon if not already. So I turned back to go find more info from the fire service guys. At that moment a very friendly lady called Nina stopped and asked whether I need a ride anywhere. I told her the situation and she suggested I go stay at the Trout Lake Abbey, neighbouring her house, for the night and call about the fire from there.
She drove me over to the abbey where I met the welcoming owners, Kosen and his wife, who set me up in a huge loft in one if their buildings. The abbey is one of the most interesting places I have seen off trail. It's an organic farm with a huge barn that is used as a Buddist temple. There is also a huge druid circle, made of standing stones. The grounds and buildings are beautiful and very well kept. Kosen is a monk who used to be in IT programming many years ago and also used to own a property in Islington, London.
A druid from Seatle, who was there to do some carving work on some if the druid stones, kindly offerred to take me to get some pizza at a restaurant called Solstice. It turned out he is a programmer for Amazon and a big fan of the band Rush!
The unexpected stop at the abbey turned out to be well worth it even though I found out later that the trail was never closed that day.
The next morning I had great breakfast with Kosen and some visitors he had over from Portland. One of my favourite stops on the trail!
Lekker stap baie mooi foto's.
ReplyDeletema en pa
You were a part of a cosmic connection. Kozen and I were friends 40 years ago. I googled the zen center based on your post and his smiling face popped up on my screen. Thank you for mentioning this place. I hope to go visit this spring.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you got to see this post and recognized Kozen. The abbey is definitely worth visiting!
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