October 3rd, 2023: The rains finally arrived and the forest floor was exploding with fungal activity! Woody and I headed to Tiger Mountain to rematch with some trails we tried this summer for lobsters/chanterelles but had gotten skunked.
This time, at about an hour in, I stumbled onto a monster patch of lobsters, nothing subtle about them once they break through. I had been seeing a lot of russula brevipes mushroom (the lobster fungi's host) so it felt like it was only a matter of time once we got off the trail to lower the competition with other hikers. The shot below shows a couple samples of the prey (left) and the parasite (right). No offense to the russulas but I hope me carrying around 10 pounds of lobsters in a mesh bag led to a major spore spreading event and even more lobsters next year.
The lobsters were a nice bonus but what I was really after on this trip, and all summer for that matter, was some chanterelles. It took another 1.5 hours of admiring thousands of other mushrooms before I finally found them. I'll show off a few of my favorites before I get to the big reveal. No idea what these are:
Another familiar edible that we found in a very small quantity was some sort of bear's tooth or lion's mane. Its kinda similar in texture and sweetness to crab meat. I had been chowing down on a lot of it lately because I found pounds of it right along a Leavenworth city park (second picture below).
Ok, I'll stop messing around and get back to my first chanterelles. This particular specimen was just showing a little hint of yellow starting to emerge from under the needles and I didn't spot it until my step had pushed some sword fern fronds out of the way. On the other hand, it looks like a neon light once unearthed. Right in a 30 yard circle yielded about a pound but I never managed to find another spot. I love their dense, stringy texture and after a few minutes of bouncing in the bag, their fruity aroma - definitely feeling justified in my obsession.
As you can see in the above picture, my chanterelle spot is not ideal for actually finding mushrooms. I'm sure I was walking by plenty of golden butter sponges but the sword ferns are just too good at hiding their friends. Still, its early in the fall season and I had high hopes to find some honey holes.
October 6th, 2023: After such a productive trip, I couldn't wait to get back out there and try to repeat my success. I even felt confident enough to invite my Lithuanian crabbing accomplice to introduce him to another PNW bounty. His time was limited, ruling out the lobster patch, so we made a beeline for the chanterelle location and an adjacent mini-lobster zone. Even in a known location, it took 20 minutes to find a single lobster and it was a little too far gone for consumption.
We did find a few chanterelles to save the morning but this was the start of a trend I've been experiencing this fall where trying to repeat a magical outing resulted in a busted visit. The shrooms are fleeting and I need to save those good spots for a return visit the following year.
October 9th, 2023: Unaware of just how fleeting the shrooms could be at this stage, I convinced myself that the time pressure and lack of exploring new ground resulted in the light bag. So this time I wandered over a much broader chunk of Tiger Mountain.
With a lot of extra miles, I ended up with a single lobster mushroom and zero chanterelles. At least until I stumbled onto what I eventually decided was a black chanterelle. It was all by its lonesome and had the same ridging of a chanterelle. I ran the pictures by a trusted source and he immediately picked out Pig's Ear as the correct ID. Its still in the chanterelle family and edible but a good reminder to stay humble as I know just enough to get myself in trouble.
The joy of finding a new species, gave me hope to keep exploring and we crossed the freeway to try another forest (a move from north facing slopes to south facing slopes). It turned out to a productive switch with lobsters and some giant dyer's polypores growing on the edge of the trail (the one below was basketball sized). The two mile loop also provided some oysters and we headed home to process the harvest. Time had run out on my day but I would be back soon to explore the forests of Issaquah more thoroughly.
