Matsutake Hunting Failures

This morning our breakfast consisted of Zeller's boletus, Fall Oysters, a taste of delicious milkcaps and leftover turkey.

With high hopes I set out with my two daughters for an area where I remember seeing Candy Stipe plant this summer. My husband stayed home to nurse a fever. Well I don't like driving in the snow so I did not go where I intended. I knew there might be snow. I have only seen Candy stipe plant in the mountains.

Much to my oldest daughter's pleasure on the way down the mountain I found some earthstars. They are not edible as far as I know but they are interesting to look at.

We decided to look around in the lower parts of the National Forest since the upper parts were just too hard to get the stroller into. We walked down some roads and found nothing. The baby screamed and screamed about being forced to sit in her stroller. We caught the attention of a park Ranger and he asked us what we were doing. He did not know much about mushrooms but he thought the mushroom season was over.

The ranger was busily pursuing some dirt bikers and at first he thought we were with them. The ranger bid us farewell and we carried on down the road to our parking spot and I let the baby out of the stroller and had a cup of coffee while watching the show of the ranger backing up and down and then up a dirt road trying to catch the motor cyclists . Finally he did catch them, my oldest daughter and I had a good laugh! The ranger just wanted them to slow down a bit because they were tearing up the forest too much. When he was done talking to them he drove past us and waved to us.

We tried another spot in the National Forest but still had no luck so we gave up and went back to yesterday's spot. We had only explored half of yesterday's spot. Still no Matsutake but we did bring home a few Chanterelle and Elfin Saddles.

It was a bit cold today and the baby wet herself more then her diaper could hold so she was even colder. At the car I changed her clothes and her diaper then put her in her car seat and draped my down jacket over her and put my hat on her head. She really thought it was cool to "wear" mama's coat!


I'm pretty tired, I walked most of the day and was pushing a baby stroller the entire time. We only had a few scraps of turkey with us so we were all famished by the time we got home. At home we feasted on thanksgiving left overs. I just had a piece of pumpkin pie for desert and am now thinking about the cranberry sauce.

I don't know where I will hike next week. I'll stay at a lower elevation if I want to gather mushrooms but maybe I will decide to play in the snow and hike up a local 3,500 foot mountain.

Tomorrow the plan is to sleep in and stay home until my husband wakes up and if he feels well enough we will all go to the Kennedy Creek Salmon Trail . If he does not feel well enough I guess I could stay home and feed him what's left of the matsutake soup.