It’s that time of the year. The rains are more frequent and the mushrooms are growing! And I love mushrooms…

Not this one, of course. This one looks deadly.

But it’s chanterelle season and if you know where to look, these mushrooms are easy to identify.

They usually grow out in little clumps and their hot orange color is easy to spot. Of course, some leaves are turning color now too, so more than once a leaf got me all excited, pretending to be a mushroom.

Of course, mushroom locations are top secret. So no, I can’t disclose the area where Megan, Collin and I went this weekend. But it looks something like this:

The weather wasn’t stellar. It rained, but when hunting for mushrooms I don’t mind the rain. This isn’t a scenic stroll through the woods. This is bushwhacking through the forest, looking for orange nuggets on the forest floor.

Foraging for mushrooms is a risky business. It’s easy to wander off and get lost. However, the area we chose was along a river, so we couldn’t really get too lost. Just keeping the river within an earshot was enough.

Here we spotted some logs damming the river -an evidence of beavers! Seeing one would’ve been cool, but they were in hiding.

Salmon were spawning in the river, which was interesting to see too.

We also heard (and saw a tail of) an elk! It was giant and quick and disappeared before I could even think of taking out my camera.

An elk skull (different elk) was an interesting find!

And lots of bear poop! Luckily, black bears are pretty shy.

My camera lens fogged up when I took this picture. But I think it really captures the forest and how it really looked. Very damp and dark and mysterious. Full of bears, beavers, elk (and, according to Megan and Collin, cougars and bobcats. They’ve seen both in this area before!).

Not a huge amount of mushrooms (in the years past we’ve had better luck), but good enough. I love eating mushrooms, but I might love looking for them even more.

OK, fine. So now you know that the river we hiked along is the Greenwater River. But it’s a long river. I will say no more about the actual location. Mushroom areas must be kept secret.

2.1 hiking miles (felt a lot longer!), 335 ft of elevation.

YTD Hiking Miles: 94.1