Mushroom Hunting

Here we are in that time of year that has increasingly made me feel like Alaska summers are an unashamed flirt and tease giving you just enough of the best to annually forget about the worst until all of a sudden it's the middle of September!  An Alaskan summer, or to be precise, a Southeast Alaskan summer, is typically upon you before it really feels like summer. Just when the sunny and warm days begin to outnumber the rainy and cold days, then BAM! it's the summer solstice and the awareness of the soon-to-be-shorteniung daylight hours creeps into your subconscious.  Winter is coming!  Thus begins a season when there is never enough time.  Never enough time to do all of the blueberry picking, salmonberry picking, thimbleberry picking, blackberry picking, cranberry picking, huckleberry picking, salmon fishing, halibut fishing, rockfish fishing, ling cod fishing, fossil hunting, sea kayaking, whale watching, hiking, camping, exploring, canning, pickling, home repairing and maintaining, home improving, bike riding, ocean swimming, reading, kite flying, mountain climbing, grilling with friends, and somewhere in there at some point, relaxing and sleeping.  Summer is the season when it's normal to be mildly exhausted at all times as you try to pack in as much activity as possible during the long days and short nights.  I can't imagine what it would be like to live far enough north to have days when the sun never set.  Those people must really be tired by the end of the summer!  My only experiences with 24 hour daylight  came when I was a firefighter for the Forest Service and got assigned to fires in the Interior of Alaska above the Arctic Circle.  It is strange to have worked on a fire line for 12 to 16 hours and then go back to your tent to get some much needed sleep when the Sun is still easily visible in the sky.  It is easier to not sleep than it is to sleep which presents the opportunity to get a lot done in any given day but cumulatively can result in a bone deep exhaustion that will at some point result in a day of sleeping for 16 to 18 hours.  Southeast Alaska isn't quite that extreme as we do get about 6 hours of real "night" in the summer but believe me, it is easy to pack a lot into a day!  And then, somehow, suddenly, it's mid September, almost a month and a half into deer season, 2 weeks into fall black bear season, coho season, moose season on its way, and for some of us, mushroom hunting season.

And the trophy buck of mushroom season is the King Bolete, Boletus edulis to get all scientific.

These are maybe the best of the wild mushrooms. There is something majestic (yes, majestic) about these mushrooms, they present themselves as stout, powerful fungi, the power behind the scenes of any ancient forest.  Each individual bolete seems like just that, an individual not just another mushroom.  Sounds strange maybe, but it is what it is and there is something about these fungi that makes me think about each one of them as I pick them.  I don't feel this way with any other mushroom species that I have ever picked and consumed, just the boletes.  I think it helps to be a weirdo mushroom nerd to understand what I'm trying to explain.  They can get very large, like nearly a foot tall with a cap the size of a saucer and the weight and heft of  a small forest animal. Even the smaller ones have a solidity and meatiness to them that gives you a lot of benefit for the effort.

I like this picture in particular because it represents the relationship between fungi and trees with the massive obvious tree in the background and the obscure humble mushroom in the foreground in the bottom right.  Mushrooms are just the fruit of fungi, like the apple of the tree it's just that we can see the tree that the apple is a part of but the "tree" that the mushroom is a part of is underground and vast.  Fungi are the nervous system of a forest and their mysterious and almost alien nature makes them seem like sentient beings to me.  I've also been reading and studying mushrooms a fair amount over the last few years and I keep learning fascinating things about them that make me view them much differently than I used to.  I've probably mentioned this in some past post but there is even a very possible and reasonable theory that mushrooms are directly connected to the evolution of the human brain, mind, and consciousness.  The name of the theory doesn't do the theory the intellectual justice it deserves but it is extremely interesting, it is called the Stoned Ape Theory.  An antiquated name for sure that deserves to be reworked in a way that would give it more mainstream attention and relevance.

It has turned out to be a phenomenal mushroom Autumn in this year 2019.  I have never found so many boletes of so many different kinds so easily and so ubiquitously.  All boletes are not edible or they at least vary in their quality as an edible wild mushroom so as with all mushrooms, be very certain of what you are eating as you could become very ill, die, or take a spiritual journey that you were not expecting!

 The above boletes are edible from what I have read although I have never eaten them myself as what I have read about them doesn't sound very appealing or worth the effort.  They are very pretty mushrooms though and this year they seem to be all over.  One of my mushroom books names this bolete the Brown and Yellow Cracked Bolete which seems to be appropriate.

This is another King Bolete that is a little past its prime but was a good sized one giving me a chance to demonstrate how big they can be.

A spiny hedgehog mushroom still emerging from the moss.  These are a particularly pretty mushroom although not edible but can be used to make a blue dye.

A pretty purple.

I just included these photos to show the amazing variety of mushrooms that have been easily seen on a quick walk on a local trail,  There are mushrooms everywhere this year and many that I have only seen in books before this fall.

This mushroom is a pig's ear or at least I'm pretty sure that is what this one is.  I know this photo doesn't give a good perspective of its size but it is a very large vaselike fungi.  This one was big enough to hold probably at least a half gallon of water were one to pour water into it.  I could have fit my camera inside of it!

An aptly named coral mushroom.  It looks like it could just as easily be growing on some undersea reef.

Is this some delicious, decadent pastry?  Some strawberry and chocolate dessert?  It does look good enough to eat and were it found in a bakery I would not hesitate to eat it but this one grows in the forest and is not edible.  It was an exciting find for me as it was my first encounter with this mushroom and where I found it, I found a lot of them!  That is one of the mysteries of mushrooms- from one year to the next you never know what will show itself.  These mushrooms are called Bleeding Hydnellum or Strawberries and Cream mushrooms.  The red drops on top are just a characteristic of this particular species.

It is too bad that these mushrooms aren't some delicious dessert fungus!  They look like you could just pop them in your mouth and enjoy a sweet treat!