Thursday 19 November 2015

Fungophilia

             While everyone is table flipping happy over the arrival of winter, take pause for a moment to lament the demise of the funnest time of year:  Mushroom season.




When the Pacific Northwest looks like this, the mycelium under the forest floor pump out a most unique fruit that brings joy to my heart and harmony to the earth.




Humans everywhere forage for food and in Squamish we are blessed with some world class bounty right under our noses.




Hunting for fungus is about as much fun as you can have with your pants on, much like climbing...

                                   You can easily combo climbing and Mushrooming




'Shrooms come in all different shapes and forms; This one as you might have guessed is a Coral





This Amanita would take you to the moon if you dared eat it...be careful, you might not come back...





                      Boletus are my favorite, easy to identify and delicious when fried with butter



These Patagonian Boletes live in a remote valley,  I never ate them, but hope to return now that I know they're good to go



The Robot Valley (real name), home to untouched big walls and fungus galore




 This Reishi lived in a nearby forest before I deracinated it from Nature and had it dried for the purpose of improving my spiritual potency.


                                                           Mushrooms like to party! 


 They are also habit forming.  Our crew of hunters has blown off several days of standard funhogging to score bounty like this.  I fear it's becoming a problem...



                            Reformed climbers pontificating on the merits of the haul




                                  Pines, Bolete and Yellow Foot Chanterelles so yummy!!!!!



  I  haven't summoned the pluck to see if these are actual Liberty Caps.   In quantity, I'm told, these little suckers deliver the Neil Armstrong experience



Beautiful Morels on the approach to a cliff in Annecy, France


   Unknown specimens in Mt. Robson Provincial Park.  Oh so tempting, but we left them unmolested






                                  Some of the most elusive mushrooms on the planet.





After a day of foraging in the Sierra Nevadas of southern Spain. Sending food!


I might not quit climbing to go full time mushroom hunting but I'm already dreaming of the thaw...