Washington Mushrooms: October 11

It’s been bone dry in Washington, an unusual summer and fall without a drop of rain.  The forecast looked promising for the upcoming weekend, rain was its the way, but the Puget Sound Mycological Society (PSMS) was hosting their annual fair and needed mushrooms for their display and ID tables.  We were on a mission to help them out and feed ourselves when we drove towards the Wenatchee National Forest. 

Our morning hike was a bit disappointing, the earth cracked beneath my feet as I tromped over fallen leaves and broken branches.  I decided to quit early and opted instead for doing yoga and headstands against a tree… the yogis say it is important to do inversions daily.   Andre persevered, but came back with only a few conks and some dried out unidentifiables.  On the next stop, however, we hit the jackpot! Andre spotted a mushroom while driving, car hunting as we call it, and found a pullout about a ¼ mile down the road.  We walked along the shoulder of the narrow highway, trucks sent vibrations through my body as they zoomed past, and saw a perfectly shaped white mushroom with pink gills sitting atop a tree stump as if placed there by an exterior decorator.  It wasn’t an agaricus, but rather, a species unknown to us.  We photographed it, carefully picked it, and crossed the street to poke around the creek for its brothers and sisters. There were lots of interesting mushrooms including some pretty polypores, toothed fungi, and giant conks.  Most exciting of all, I stumbled upon a giant and very fresh hericium, commonly known as the icicle or bear’s tooth.  This mushroom feels as wonderful to touch as it looks, with its delicate white hairs and coral-like stems.  All in all, I’d say we found an impressive variety for the club meeting, maybe 15 species.

Daniel suggested we stop in Leavenworth, a cute Bavarian inspired town.  Andre was excited to have a sausage and sauerkraut, and I was looking forward to a local beer.  Being back on the warm coast felt amazing.  First, we strolled around town a bit, laughing at the other tourists and ogling pastries in the bakery, then we found a beer garden where they served up huge sausages, apple cider sauerkraut, 15 different kinds of homemade mustard, and a great selection of Washington brews.  We started talking to a local, Anthony, about our trip and he gave us the scoop on a productive mushroom spot in a campground near the lake we were planning to scout out.  Being from out of town is sometimes very helpful; pickers don’t have to worry that we’ll raid their secret spots… at least not more than once.  We finished our sausages and thanked him before heading back to Butter.  On the walk back, we passed a cheese monger and decided to take a look.  Chatting with the clerk, as we always do, we got to talking about mushrooms.  Usually, Andre does the bartering but today I got over my shyness and asked if she was interested in trading cheese for dried porcini.  She was, and gave us two delicious and hefty chunks of local $30/lb cheese for just over an ounce of dried mushrooms.  What a score!  Well fed, thirst quenched, cheese in hand, we went to find those white chanterelles!

The drive to the lake was bouncy, but Anthony was right about this place.  After hiking for just over an hour, we ended up with more hericium and a few chanties. The forest was primary growth, ancient trees towered over our heads reminding me of how short my life is relative to theirs.  How insignificant I really am.  The evening was spent canning several jars of elderberry pancake syrup and fresh plum sauce that we’d use for breakfasts.  I like foraging much more than I do processing the food we find, but given that winter is coming it seemed like a good idea to plan ahead. 

In the morning, a rather long hike resulted in several overfilled bags of mushrooms, nearly 50 species for the fair, including 4 pounds of white chanterelles, nearly the same amount of icicles, and my very first matsutake, matsutake, matsutake!  Yes, I was excited!  Had I known what it was before the helpful PSMS volunteers identified it for me, I probably would have found others, but alas…  In any event, they did let me keep it even though I didn’t particularly like the pungent fragrance.  Now that I think about it, I’m sure I found this same mushroom in Colorado once when hiking with my friend Cat, but didn’t take it because of its smell.

The PSMS fair volunteers fed us well, helped us identify some of the unfamiliar mushrooms we brought in, and thanked us for bringing in so much variety.  Other hunters weren’t so lucky.  I hope our good fortune continues!