Field Trip from Hell

I just got back from a field trip with my forest ecology class and for the entire duration of the trip I could not see the forest for the measuring tape.

I'm ill and exhausted and I'm in a foul mood. I won't have the energy to go hiking this weekend. My husband is also in a foul mood and he won't be willing to watch the kids while I hike.

I've managed to hike almost every weekend since the term started.

A new trail at an old Carnage Site?

Another $50,000 will go to the County for planning the Camp Govey Backcountry Trail. Mason County will use this grant to create a master plan for a trail on Green Diamond Resource Company forest land........  http://www.masoncountydailynews.com/local_news.htm

Big Creek to Upper Ellinor

 Forest Service Winter-Time Greeting

Oh yeah, fall is here and winter is coming up fast. I'm back into my fall hiking routine. It goes like this: Wake up see what time it is, oh yeah its hiking day! I spring out of bed then tip toe around the house so as not to wake my toddler so my husband can hopefully sleep in a bit.

Brew a cup and a thermos full of mate tea, head out the car with my pack, thermos and trekking poles. Start the car, scrape ice off the windows, get in the car, try not to slam the door, turn on the head lights and the heater, drive up the Hood Canal, park at the trail head. Next I wrap my thermos in a blanket, warm up my GPS, lock the car and start walking in the dark. I love it!

I don't believe in big foot, but there in the dark on The Big Creek Trail I heard a really loud animal in the bushes. I'm well used to hearing herds of elk and I've even heard a couple of bears run away from me. But this animal was stomping, it was so loud! I left the trail to try to get a look at it but I did not get to see it.

What ever it was, I think I scared it off the trail and it walked a little ways off the trail and then stopped but when I left the trail to try to get a look it started walking / stomping off again. It was so loud it was really weird. Maybe it was a wounded elk or deer dragging it's self through the bushes, or maybe it was Bigfoot.

Last night I went to the mall and could barely walk, I'm amazed that I was able to hike so well today. I have my annual September to April sinus infection but I've not hiked in two weeks and I need to get out there so I can stay in shape.

My plan was to hike up the Big Creek Trail to the Ellinor Connector Trail and eat my lunch and the little overlook with a bench and a view of Hood Canal. Not a big work out, but maybe enough for a sick day. But, I flew right past the overlook and soon was overtaken by Greg from the WTA. Greg was summit bound. I followed Greg until almost all the way to the upper trailhead then I gave up on keeping up. Greg also started at the Big Creek Campground and for both of us this was the first time we had ever seen another soul on the Ellinor Connector trail.

I made it all the way up to the junction with the Upper Ellinor trail and I could hear the mobs from Olympia. I turned around there and then I found something that caught my eye. A pink ribbon tied to a stump. Hmmm, I wonder what that ribbon is marking.

As I approached the ribbon I saw another ribbon and I realized I was on a side trail of some sort. At that point I got out my GPS and I decided that I had found a route to Mount Rose. But now at home looking at my topo I think what I found was a trace of an old trail. My topo shows a trail going in the same direction as the ribbons. That trail intercepts the main trail somewhere near the little campsite you can see Seattle from.

Oh what a lovely forest it is up there on the Lower Ellinor trail and on parts of the Ellinor Connector trail. It is a climax old growth forest of Hemlock with all kinds of saprophytes. I don't think it has any protections, what a shame. I felt privileged to be able to see this forest again before the snow gets too deep. There was no snow on my trail today. It's just a tiny ridge that for what ever reason was spared while the forest all around was clear cut. I wonder if it could be added to the Mount Skokomish Wilderness.

A lot of people did not get the message that the Forest Service to Staircase is closed , so they tried to go to Staircase and had to turn around and go to Big Creek instead. Luckily for me the mob all stayed on the lower loop and of course the Upper Ellinor Trail, so I got to be alone for most of the day.

I think us hikers should mob the Forest Service Hood Canal office and demand access to OUR LANDS!!

I needed to be alone today. Dealing with spoilt brats at Evergreen during the day and then going home to my own kids at night is doing my head in.

They are not all spoiled brats at Evergreen but the few ones that are spoiled really get on my nerves. Too bad I can't bend them over my knee and give them a sound spanking.

I found a load of Chanterelles today but they were well off the trail. The Big Creek trail is picked over and over picked. I found a couple of Matsutake down by Hoodsport. I also brought home a shrimp russula and an elfin saddle.

In College this week I got to use Melzer's Reagent to dye mushroom spores with. I am enjoying my time in the microscope lab. All Next week we go on a field trip and I'm not sure if I'm looking forward to it. Cramped up in a van for a four hour trip to Oregon with a load of 19 year old screaming pot heads, is not my idea of a good time. I'll try to ride in a van with some adults in it. There are plenty of mature adults in my forest ecology class, I need to seek them out.

I've been told that the only free time we get on field trips is when we eat. This is to keep the kids in line. If they get bored they might get alcohol poisoning. Holy shit, I signed up for 16 credits that means 16 hours a week. I did not sign my life away when I paid my tuition, I better get some free time!

Today’s Stat's 10 miles with 2,800 feet elevation gain.

I took the confluence trail and I also went off trail a couple of times so that made this hike longer then normal.



Lower Ellinor Forest in the fog



Chopped up King Boletes from last week



Signs




Possible Kings we found in Downtown Oly last week. What ever they were they sure tasted good.


Track Log



Elevation Profile Log



Lower Ellinor Forest in the Fog



Some mushrooms

King Boletes / Alice in Wonderland Mushrooms

(Fly Agaric) Alice in Wonderland Mushroom

  

We left the house before dawn on Saturday and raced to our King Bolete spot. Competition for the King is quite intense. We managed to beat the hoards and our score was 18-11. I found 11 and my daughter found 18. Before we left we ran into no less then two mushroom clubs in the woods. One had came all the way from the Canadian Border.  We left at 11:00  and then went to dinner with my Dad in Tacoma.


On Sunday Afternoon I went for a mini hike at Twana State Park, it's only 3.5 miles but I was pushing a stroller so I got a little bit of a work out. I was hoping to see the salmon spawn at Twana but there were none, I don't know if I am too early or too late.

It was clear that people had been hunting mushrooms at Twana the evidence was everywhere. Toppled buttons, dissected caps and even a pile of Tricholoma focale that someone picked and then dumped out. Maybe they thought they had matsutake? is poison.

I got to look at mushroom spores under a microscope at college last week and I really enjoyed that. I looked at Shrimp Russula and Fat Jacks and they look very different. I'm going to take some more spores in to look at today.

Today I looked at Tricholoma focale, and Chroogomphus vinicolor
under the scope.The Chroogomphus vinicolor spores were much larger 15 microns compared to thee Tricholoma focale that I measured at 2 microns.  I don't know if the ruler 
was calibrated correctly but you get idea.  The Croogomphus
spores were very eliptical while the Tricholoma spores were
very round.   As usual blogger is screwing up my formatting.. :(

Tonight I am dining on Shrimp Russula that I picked on campus.  I think I have finally figured out how to identify them and they are everywhere!

I was too run down to get up early and go on a real hike this Sunday.  My college studies (in statistics) are getting me down and I have my first sinus infection of the season.  I'll probably be sick until April now.





Dead Mans Foot





Our Catch of Kings with a few shaggy manes 
and men on horseback (Tricholoma flavovirens)



King button



Fly Agaric Button in it's Volva
(Alice in Wonderland Mushroom)


Fly Agric Buttons
Alice in Wonderland Mushrooms



More fly agaric
(Amanita muscaria)



Stropharia from campus

Elk Lake Trail, Jeeping and Mushrooming

Well I was wrong. I was too tired to go hiking this week. My class and a fever is kicking my butt. I still managed to get out and have some fun though.

I can't decide what mushroom to eat first! We started our day by hunting for mushrooms on a public right of way but some jerk from a nearby campground came out and tried to give us a warning for mushroom picking in the campground.  Never mind that we had not set foot in the campground and had picked no mushrooms anywhere that day. We told him off and refused to take the written warning he tried to hand us. I'm temped to call his boss and complain.

With all of the rest of Olympic Peninsula open to us we felt no need to linger by the road so we headed up some high elevations sites but they were below the slush line already. Yep it's too cold up there now. Next we checked out two lower elevation sites both of which I had hiked but had not hunted mushrooms on. The second site was great and I got a grocery sack full of chanterelles and several shrimp russulas (Russula xerampelina).
I've not been brave enough to try to identify and eat a Shrimp Russula before.

I've always wanted to drive from Hoodsport to Hamma Hamma on the back road so we gave it a try. It was a bit confusing even with my GPS but we did find our way to the Hamma Hamma via the 24 road. I found Leccinum ponderosum on the way. That is one I've not seen before and it is supposed to taste good but I have to wait a day to eat it. I tried my Shrimp Russulas today and I only try one new to me mushroom per day.


There were a lot of hunters wearing orange vests and driving really slow down the 24, I guess they were looking for something to shoot from their trucks. If they never get out of their trucks what use are the orange vests?

We came out near the Elk Lake trail. That is a trail that I've never hiked because it is too short to hike. Well that's how I see it. It's too short to make a whole day out of hiking it. But our day was almost over so we stopped and "hiked" it. What a lovely old growth forest! We really enjoyed this stub of a trail. I think the trail used to be much longer and it connected with the Jefferson Ridge Trail once upon a time. I found some angel wings on the trail and then on the way to the Hamma Hamma road I found a few old shaggy manes.

I have more mushrooms then I can eat and such a variety too. I have two kinds of chanterelles, Leccinum ponderosum, Angel Wings, Hedgehogs, Shrimp Russulas and Honey Mushrooms.

Honey Mushrooms grow in my back yard. They only came on this week so I was beginning to think we would get none this year. I guess we just have a late fruiting variety in our back yard.

Most fall mushrooms are starting to wind down and the winter mushrooms are coming on. My class found a nice big Cauliflower mushroom last week and I've been finding Hedgehogs.

I wish I had found that Cauliflower, it was a nice fresh one without a trace of yellow. My mouth waters just thinking about it.






Leccinum ponderosum or maybe manzanitae