It just took a few minutes to round up our 80 clams and it was tempting to try our first WA mussels that had anchored to the shore logs but I wasn't clear on the regulations and health status for mussels on that particular beach so we left them for another visit (hopefully). I scanned the swamp on the way back up and found a few more oysters including this one that had just broken through the bark, less than an inch across the whole clump. It was just enough shrooms to cover a 10" skillet but they stole the show from the steamer clams at the dinner table.
May 1, 2023: For the first outing specifically targeting oysters, I headed up towards Squak Mountain where a previous hike had revealed a lot of alder across a decent span of elevation (400'-1,200'). The lower elevation takes you through a retired RV park that must have had 100+ units. The old gravel roads make it easy to zig zag through the woods where the brush can get pretty hostile.
The first batch was well past its prime and next year I will know to keep walking but back then I didn't appreciate just how hospitable oysters are to all sorts of bugs and their larva. I grabbed the few that were not dried and then spent two more hours looking at hundreds of alders and no edible mushrooms...
The dog and I did find a few artifacts higher up on the mountain but off the trail was riddled with deep holes/depressions that would sometimes swallow the dog. No idea what the story could be, certainly didn't look geological... maybe a rogue prospector who enjoyed the futility of digging grave sized holes but liked to keep clean with large quantities of Purex soap in vintage glass bottles??
Eventually all that walking convinced me that maybe I was just too high for the season and we headed back into town to try a city park. This particular park was in the 300'-500' range but also closer to Lake Washington so maybe a little warmer micro climate. But honestly, this is just one example of the many little lies I tell myself to make sense of the randomness at which the oyster mushrooms decide to fruit. By the time I'm writing this I've checked out thousands of dead alder and surprisingly few are productive at any given time. 
The creek location was more fruitful, at least on the small scale. I was able to gather a few here and there and feeling pretty good about making the right call to give up on the mountains.
Then I escaped from a proselytizing ambusher who took all the fun out of the waterfall and stumbled onto the big payoff! This tree had pounds of fresh oysters and even though many were out of reach, they are firm enough that some gentle pressure from a stick pops off the whole cluster (catching them on the drop is a little trickier).
With these guys weighing down my bag, I practically floated back to the car. Butter and salt, cooked until nicely browned accounted for most of the bounty but I also tried a soup and a risotto to get through the rest.
May 7, 2023: Time to get the family in on the action! We headed to Vashon Island for the day and since I had done some trail work there in April, I had some more alder stands flagged to investigate. 
We got some but the vast majority of what we found were either too old, too young, or too high up to harvest. On the other hand, I think the boys spotted more species of shrooms than I managed and that helps me be a little less anxious about my view of the world slowly drifting from 4K to Etch A Sketch.
May 12, 2023: Back into the mountains for a hike that turned out to also have oysters! I've posted on this hike before and it is still an awesome, quick trip for anyone in the I-90 vicinity. I'm thinking one or two more years before our little guy could do this one without giving me heart palpitations. The big shocker was an assisted living facility was having an outing and their residents were climbing all the way past the falls. Back at the parking lot we noted the name of the facility on the bus and joined their waitlist (you can't leave such important decisions to your kids)!
The harvest on this hike was limited to a single draw within earshot of I-90. Maybe because of the elevation, what had fruited was all small and free of bugs!
May 19, 2023: This is the day where finding oysters started to feel routine. I was at an ocean side park near the airport, waiting for my mom's flight to land and I found them all over the parking lot area. Its hard for me to comprehend that I spent nine other springs in WA without ever even noticing these mushrooms existed... 
This particular park was fun because the oysters presented themselves on logs both large and small, standing and fallen, and both the white and brown varieties. In the last log picture you can even see how the white spores have given the alder bark an extra white coating. The total yield was about three pounds and I had to resort to the dehydrator for the first time. We have since plopped some of the desiccated ones back into soup and they work out nicely.
May 23, 2023: Back to the same park to kill some time while we watched my mom's return flight settling into a delay doom spiral. The consolation was another four pounds of oysters for the dehydrator and I would guess at least 20 pounds that were just to high to reach, even with a stick.
I apologize for this post coming so late in the oyster season but maybe today's rain, first in 17 days here, will bring out a second round soon. If you do go the dehydrator route, I had good luck with setting them at 105°F right before I went to bed and they were plenty dry by morning. Too early to say with certainly, but I feel like they will store indefinitely in mason jars with a little food safe desiccant packet in each.
PS - These little alpine jelly cones are long gone for the season but one toddler and the wife were brave enough to try them on our steamer clam trip back in April. Probably something you only need to try once since they are tasteless and even at their peak freshness are just on the edge of slimy. 
