Big Creek Camp to Mount Ellinor Upper TH Almost

2,320 elevation gain and 10 miles. That's a 19 on the hike difficulty calculator . I'm tired and sore but feel good. It was very good for me to get 6 hours all to myself. Six hours of just me and the trail, trees, rain and snow. I really needed this mental break. It's been quite a while since I've had a good hike and I was starting to get out of shape.

The snow was blowing sideways near the upper trail head and the days are getting shorter so I turned around one quarter of a mile (by air) before the upper trail head.

My track log and elevation chart are not the best because my GPS did not a have a signal much of the time.

Chanterelles and Hoodsport Wine

(Click to Enlarge)

Well I finally got some Chanterelles near home. They are soggy as hell but they are not rotten so I'm gonna eat them. Since these were already so soggy I went ahead and washed them off with lots of running water. They are now in the dehydrator. I'll eat them tonight after they have dried down some.

I had to discard several shooms that were starting to rot.

This a new spot for me and I'm excited to have a new spot. These shrooms cost me $25.00 plus gas.. I put my youngest in day care so I could get out in the woods and be alone today. At least I found some mushrooms.

I've been feeling a bit blue the past few weeks and I really needed to get out and do some walking. Finding mushrooms was a big bonus. Maybe this will lift my spirits.

I have discovered a wine that I really like it is raspberry merlot from Hoodsport winery. I better be careful it could become an expensive habit. I finished my first bottle of it about a week ago. Last night I discovered that my local Safeway carries it and it was $3.00 cheaper then the price at the winery. Still at the $9.99 per bottle that I paid for it the price could ad up if I learned to like it too much.

King Boletes

It's been a few weeks since I have been able to go hiking. It's cold and school season. I sure get tired of being sick every fall.

I have been able to go camping every weekend though. Last weekend we went to the coast and picked 15 pounds of King Boletes. We got all but one of the boletes on the first day looking. At the end of the day we found a patch that had as many boletes as we had picked all day. Unfortunately for us an Asian woman who had been clandestinely following us around rushed up to us and picked three of the bigger kings.

We had two nice King Bolete meals at the campground and made up a big Cream of Bolete at home. The rest we dried and our season total is 14 ounces of dried King Bolete.

Our local chanterelle spot should be wet enough to pop now but we were both too sick to go check this afternoon.

We got over 3 inches of rain yesterday and have gotten 9 inches of rain in the last 4 days so it's plenty wet enough!

My camera went in for warranty repair but Cannon lost my invoice and just held on to my camera for a month. It would have sat there forever if I had not called and asked them what the hell was going on. But Cannon seems to be trying to make up for it. They sent my camera back to me by Fed Ex Second day air. I should have it back tomorrow. I wish I could have taken pictures of all our boletes.