Back from the hunt...
Aug. 8th, 2004 08:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexpgpGalina and I spent the morning cleaning the downstairs office, and round about our late breakfast/early lunch (the leftovers from last night's dinner, taken home in a container), I decided the weather was perfect for a jaunt in the woods. Galina demurred, preferring to stay in town and maybe do some rearrangement of items in the store.
I had intended to go to what I refer to as "the top of the world," up above Wolf Creek pass at Lobo point, but as I drove out in that direction, I felt such a trip would not be very productive, so I turned off of Highway 160 just a little further down from where Galina and I heard the concert the other night and I went to the end of the road, just as Natalie and I did nearly a decade ago, to the trailhead that leads to the Rainbow Trail. (The nomenclature of the National Forest roads can be confusing if you don't pay attention, which I don't: there seem to be "forks" for each direction in the compass, i.e., "north fork," "south fork," etc., all referring to the many creeks in the area that feed into the San Juan River.)
I became "mushroom aware" sometime in late 1994, if memory serves, and if so, our hike took place earlier that summer, undertaken for the purpose of having fun, doing some father--daughter bonding, trying out my new fly fishing gear (I actually caught a fish), and to see if we could hike into the wilderness and find the hot springs that are shown on the map. While accomplishing the first three goals, I recall I saw a fiery red Amanita muscaria, a mushroom commonly called Fly Agaric (used to attract and kill flies, and whose common name in Russian -- мухомор -- also hints at this same use), but my curiosity wasn't piqued the way it would have been a couple of months later, after eating that fateful bowl of mushroom soup at Feht's. I also remember seeing a lot of mushrooms along the side of the trail, but didn't pay much attention to them.
The point of the walk today was to get some exercise and see if there were any good mushrooms to be seen and harvested. My curiosity got a fine boost at the trailhead parking area, where I saw about a dozen fairly fresh shaggy manes and a number of fairly old specimens that had already given up the ghost.
Hiking in from the trailhead parking area is mostly uphill and takes one through about a mile of private property. The sun was out and my organizational skills did not include taking either sunscreen or mosquito repellent (my bad), so I spent a lot of time swatting critters and darting from one patch of shade to another. About 100 yards past the gate, I saw a group of white, gilled mushrooms that I could not identify, although I did take a picture and a specimen.
(If I had to go by a picture in Arora's Mushrooms Demystified, I might speculate this could be a Volvariella speciosa, but as any mushroom hunter will tell you, comparing pictures to specimens -- or pictures to pictures -- is a notoriously inaccurate method of mushroom identification and should not be relied upon especially if you're planning to eat the mushroom. Flame off!)
A little further down, I turned a corner and promptly found a pair of interesting boletes, which Arora's MD indicates may be Bolens rubripes, or red-stemmed bitter boletes, assuming I can confirm that the stalk is "non-reticulate." It's a pretty mushroom, but I'm not prepared to try to eat it.
As I proceeded down the trail, encountering nobody, I could hear the San Juan River flowing in the gorge off to my right. I'm not easily intimidated by heights, but I did keep a respectable distance between myself and the edge of the cliff.
Hmm. It would appear I stood too far away. Looking at this photo after the fact, I can see where it would appear as though the pines in the foreground stop approximately at the level of the nearest "edge" of ground. Not so. The ground drops away at an angle of about 70 degrees at that edge, and I'd estimate only about the top 2/3 of the pine on the right-hand side can be seen. Ah, well... it's a pretty picture nevertheless, and puts me in mind of Service's line about "on the flanks of the storm-gored ridges."
After a while, one takes leave of private property and enters the National Forest proper. Before you know it, you're in the Weminuche Wilderness, where "wilderness" is a legal designation. I found a small 'eruption' of boletes, which I first thought were king mushrooms (Boletus edulis), but changed my mind when I actually did find some king mushrooms later.
If my Arora can be trusted, the eruption very likely consists of some kind of Suillus mushrooms. The kings I found later were located off the beaten track (and off the trail), as I hiked downhill along a stream that passes under the trail shortly after the sign announcing one's entry in the wilderness area. A few pools downstream, my mind turned from mushrooms to the joyous sound of the rushing water, which captivated me, and I decided -- like a kid -- to go in for a dip. This was a mistake, sort of.
The water was cold, almost freezing. Certainly colder than I remember the water near Santa Cruz, California, and that was fairly, um, invigorating! Then there was the issue of walking on the creek bed barefoot, which added a modicum of pain to the numbness imparted by the water, and prevented any kind of rapid movement from one place to another.
Eventually, however, I got to the "deep" part of the pool -- about up to my knees -- just below a small, splashing waterfall, and enjoyed the rushing water. It was certainly refreshing!
The water's temperature kept me from getting comfortable in the pool, so I got out and put my clothes back on, swatting flies and mosquitos that found my mass appealing. Getting into this area was easier than getting out. I actually slipped down the rather steep bank, scratching up my back in the process, but the really bad news was that my mushroom bucket went flying, discharging its contents as it went. Here, I found out my shoes were actually pretty good in the waterproofing department, because I ended up in the water again, up to my laces, chasing down the boletes before the current could sweep them away.
The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful as I trudged back to the car. Someday, I'd like to do an overnight out there.
Once I got home, I took stock of the day's take:
(Over in the left bottom corner is a single puffball. The mushrooms in the upper left-hand area are Shaggy Manes, many of which had already begun to deteriorate by the time I got home. The boletes are on the right-hand side of the photo, and a pair of individual Suillus mushrooms are in the bottom right-hand corner of the picture.)
Galina andd I had the largest of the boletes for dinner, finely chopped and fried together with some beef, served over mashed potatoes. It was delicious!
Cheers...
I had intended to go to what I refer to as "the top of the world," up above Wolf Creek pass at Lobo point, but as I drove out in that direction, I felt such a trip would not be very productive, so I turned off of Highway 160 just a little further down from where Galina and I heard the concert the other night and I went to the end of the road, just as Natalie and I did nearly a decade ago, to the trailhead that leads to the Rainbow Trail. (The nomenclature of the National Forest roads can be confusing if you don't pay attention, which I don't: there seem to be "forks" for each direction in the compass, i.e., "north fork," "south fork," etc., all referring to the many creeks in the area that feed into the San Juan River.)
I became "mushroom aware" sometime in late 1994, if memory serves, and if so, our hike took place earlier that summer, undertaken for the purpose of having fun, doing some father--daughter bonding, trying out my new fly fishing gear (I actually caught a fish), and to see if we could hike into the wilderness and find the hot springs that are shown on the map. While accomplishing the first three goals, I recall I saw a fiery red Amanita muscaria, a mushroom commonly called Fly Agaric (used to attract and kill flies, and whose common name in Russian -- мухомор -- also hints at this same use), but my curiosity wasn't piqued the way it would have been a couple of months later, after eating that fateful bowl of mushroom soup at Feht's. I also remember seeing a lot of mushrooms along the side of the trail, but didn't pay much attention to them.
The point of the walk today was to get some exercise and see if there were any good mushrooms to be seen and harvested. My curiosity got a fine boost at the trailhead parking area, where I saw about a dozen fairly fresh shaggy manes and a number of fairly old specimens that had already given up the ghost.
Hiking in from the trailhead parking area is mostly uphill and takes one through about a mile of private property. The sun was out and my organizational skills did not include taking either sunscreen or mosquito repellent (my bad), so I spent a lot of time swatting critters and darting from one patch of shade to another. About 100 yards past the gate, I saw a group of white, gilled mushrooms that I could not identify, although I did take a picture and a specimen.
(If I had to go by a picture in Arora's Mushrooms Demystified, I might speculate this could be a Volvariella speciosa, but as any mushroom hunter will tell you, comparing pictures to specimens -- or pictures to pictures -- is a notoriously inaccurate method of mushroom identification and should not be relied upon especially if you're planning to eat the mushroom. Flame off!)
A little further down, I turned a corner and promptly found a pair of interesting boletes, which Arora's MD indicates may be Bolens rubripes, or red-stemmed bitter boletes, assuming I can confirm that the stalk is "non-reticulate." It's a pretty mushroom, but I'm not prepared to try to eat it.
As I proceeded down the trail, encountering nobody, I could hear the San Juan River flowing in the gorge off to my right. I'm not easily intimidated by heights, but I did keep a respectable distance between myself and the edge of the cliff.
Hmm. It would appear I stood too far away. Looking at this photo after the fact, I can see where it would appear as though the pines in the foreground stop approximately at the level of the nearest "edge" of ground. Not so. The ground drops away at an angle of about 70 degrees at that edge, and I'd estimate only about the top 2/3 of the pine on the right-hand side can be seen. Ah, well... it's a pretty picture nevertheless, and puts me in mind of Service's line about "on the flanks of the storm-gored ridges."
After a while, one takes leave of private property and enters the National Forest proper. Before you know it, you're in the Weminuche Wilderness, where "wilderness" is a legal designation. I found a small 'eruption' of boletes, which I first thought were king mushrooms (Boletus edulis), but changed my mind when I actually did find some king mushrooms later.
If my Arora can be trusted, the eruption very likely consists of some kind of Suillus mushrooms. The kings I found later were located off the beaten track (and off the trail), as I hiked downhill along a stream that passes under the trail shortly after the sign announcing one's entry in the wilderness area. A few pools downstream, my mind turned from mushrooms to the joyous sound of the rushing water, which captivated me, and I decided -- like a kid -- to go in for a dip. This was a mistake, sort of.
The water was cold, almost freezing. Certainly colder than I remember the water near Santa Cruz, California, and that was fairly, um, invigorating! Then there was the issue of walking on the creek bed barefoot, which added a modicum of pain to the numbness imparted by the water, and prevented any kind of rapid movement from one place to another.
Eventually, however, I got to the "deep" part of the pool -- about up to my knees -- just below a small, splashing waterfall, and enjoyed the rushing water. It was certainly refreshing!
The water's temperature kept me from getting comfortable in the pool, so I got out and put my clothes back on, swatting flies and mosquitos that found my mass appealing. Getting into this area was easier than getting out. I actually slipped down the rather steep bank, scratching up my back in the process, but the really bad news was that my mushroom bucket went flying, discharging its contents as it went. Here, I found out my shoes were actually pretty good in the waterproofing department, because I ended up in the water again, up to my laces, chasing down the boletes before the current could sweep them away.
The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful as I trudged back to the car. Someday, I'd like to do an overnight out there.
Once I got home, I took stock of the day's take:
(Over in the left bottom corner is a single puffball. The mushrooms in the upper left-hand area are Shaggy Manes, many of which had already begun to deteriorate by the time I got home. The boletes are on the right-hand side of the photo, and a pair of individual Suillus mushrooms are in the bottom right-hand corner of the picture.)
Galina andd I had the largest of the boletes for dinner, finely chopped and fried together with some beef, served over mashed potatoes. It was delicious!
Cheers...
