Our breakfast of pancakes came and were quickly devoured; afterwards, I ordered
a huckleberry cinnamon roll. The price for two huckleberry pancakes was
ten dollars, with huckleberries being two dollars extra. The cinnamon
roll was five dollars, and in all honesty, they weren’t that good, but the
anticipation of leaving the trail and coming into a small town for pancakes and
a milk shake easily made up for the lack of food quality.
I retrieved my backpack from the front of the
gas station and returned to the lawn at the back of the café that served as a
small park for customers. I emptied the contents of the pack onto the
grass and spread all my wet clothes, tent, sleeping bag, and ground cloth on
the lawn and fence to dry in the noonday sun. Within an hour, I was ready
to leave, but Brownie said he wanted to stay a little longer and have a
huckleberry milk shake.
Standing at the edge of the pavement on the road
leading back to the PCT road crossing, I quickly snagged a ride with a local
who was driving another hiker back to the trailhead. The hiker said his
name was Seminole, as in Seminole Indians. The driver was a middle-aged
man with snow-white hair, who introduced himself as Kirk.
After Kirk dropped us off at the trailhead, Seminole
engaged me in a short conversation. He said he had come into Trout Lake several
days ago and stayed at the Trout Lake Abbey on the outskirts of town, of which
Kirk was the proprietor. He said that for twenty-five dollars he had been
given a clean room, complete with toilet and shower facilities, dinner that
evening, and breakfast the next morning. The next day, Seminole said he
hiked to the top of Mount Adams and returned to the Abbey the same day
.
He said that Kirk was a practicing Druid, or one
devoted to Paganism – earth religion; in fact, he said that Kirk was the
highest-ranking priest of druidry in the United States, if not the entire
world. When I returned home, I did a Google search for Kirk and the White
Mountain Druid Sanctuary he operates, and on his web page there was a great
picture of Kirk with his long flowing white hair dressed in magnificent white
robes and holding a large wooden staff. I must say, he looks very regal
in his ceremonial dress. From his web page, he said this about himself:
“So, I practice druidry within my commitment to
ADF (Ár nDríaocht Féin) Druidism. These pages will explore both sides of
this coin in my spiritual practice: that of my personal practice of
ritual, trance, meditation and ecstasy, and my more public face as priest of an
ADF Sanctuary, ADF Archdruid, Chief of the Clergy Council, former Chief of the
Liturgists Guild, behind-the-scenes cheerleader and, occasionally, scourge.”
(Kirk)
Kirk lives on a farm outside of town and shares
the property and buildings with a Buddhist monk named Kozen, who runs his own
show called the Mount Adams Zen Buddhist Temple. From a religious
standpoint, apparently Paganism and Buddhism don’t overlap, so each – Kozen and
Kirk, can do their own thing, instruct their own students, teach their own
classes, and provide their own ceremonies and rituals in the way they see fit.
The two share the labors on the farm that has been certified by the state
as an organic farm producing eggs, fruits, and vegetables that they sell at
local farmers market. I’m glad I got to meet Kirk; he was an out of the
ordinary character, and like all hikers on the trail, he had an interesting
story to tell.
Seminole and I walked across the road together;
as we walked, he talked. He said he needed to be in Packwood by Monday
evening (today is Saturday afternoon) as the Florida State Seminole football
team was playing a big-time rival, and as a die-hard Seminole fan, he wanted to
be sure and watch the game. Packwood was over eighty miles from the road
we were standing on, which meant a minimum of forty miles per day to reach
Packwood by Monday evening. I shook my head in disbelief as I
contemplated the distance he would have to travel each day, besides the fact
that he smoked. But Seminole was young and an exceptionally fast hiker,
so I had no doubts that he would be present for game day. Once we
separated from one another, I never saw him again.
From Highway 23, where Seminole and I separated,
it was a two-thousand-foot climb to the base of Mount Adams. It was a
struggle for me, and I’m secretly wishing the trip to be over with. Mount
Adams still had an abundance of snow on its flanks, and the first glacier I
could see was White Salmon Glacier.
Just past the Stagman Ridge Trail was a spur
trail that led to the summit of Mount Adams. The PCT Oregon/Washington
guidebook said that this was a popular trail to the summit, and that in times
past it was a route used by mule trains in the 1930s to bring supplies to a
sulfur claim that had been staked out at the summit, but didn’t pay off.
As I hiked the last few miles to my camp at
Sheep Lake, I could see, far in the distance, the peaks of the Goat Rocks
Wilderness area and the faint outline of Mount Rainer, the largest volcanic
peak in the Cascade Mountain Range.
It was a pleasant walk this morning around the
base of Mount Adams; there were open meadows and lava beds to traverse and I
met a number of day hikers on the trail. There were several Forest
Service roads that cut through this wilderness area, giving hikers access to
the numerous trails that crisscrossed the landscape.
The glaciers, high up on the slopes of Mount
Adams, are the source for many streams and waterfalls that flowed down from the
mountain. One small waterfall that emptied into a meadow is a favorite
camping spot for groups, and on this day, a group campsite is occupied by a
noisy group of boy scouts. I waved to them as I passed by.
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