I had a pretty FUN-gi weekend here in northern Arizona.
Hehehe… puns.
My friend Megan, who recently joined the Arizona Mushroom Society, asked if I wanted to be her plus-one to a Sunday morning mushroom foray in the Kachina Peaks Wilderness here on the Coconino.
Why the heck not?
I was never really a mushroom person growing up. I’d tried the slimy, canned mushrooms that go on top of pizza and that — combined with the fact that, you know, they’re an icky gross fungus! — kind of turned me off.
But, within the past few years, I’ve gotten a little more into eating mushrooms. I learned how to ACTUALLY prepare supermarket mushrooms into wild rice and mushroom stew, mushroom Wellington, mushroom gravy, etc., and as it turns out? Good quality, fresh mushrooms prepared correctly are actually pretty dang good!
So, Megan’s invitation was a very easy yes.
We started by meeting up at Arizona Snowbowl at about 8:30 a.m. Sunday morning.
Our foray leader, Mike (who I also happen to work with on the forest), started by giving us a little bit of a safety run down.
Then, we started our hike around the Kachina Peaks wilderness. Mike stopped every so often to point out mushrooms and explain some of the characteristics that can be used to identify mushrooms, like color, shape, gill patterns, etc.
He also showed us a spore print chart and explained how it works to further identify mushrooms.
Afterward, we all kind of roamed around looking for mushrooms and asking Mike to tell us more.
Mike has been into mycology for 15-plus years, and is super knowledgable.
Several of the foragers brought baskets, mesh bags and paper bags to take edible mushrooms home to prepare.
I took home a bunch of coral mushrooms to (maybe) eat, but for the most part, I had a really good time just looking at the mushroom varieties and learning.
I’ve never hiked up and around the mountains during mushroom season, so I was blown away by the sheer number of mushrooms there actually are out in the Coconino!
There are HUNDREDS of mushroom species that grow around northern Arizona, and these are just a handful of the dozens of types we saw.
Megan was in heaven the entire time.
At the end of the foray, Mike went through all of our baskets and bags to double-check and make sure everything we collected was edible and non-toxic, and then we went about our day!
Megan said she hoped to make a pasta and mushroom Ragú with her finds. I only took home one small puffball mushroom and a collection of coral mushroom, and while I’m not sure if I’ll eat any of it, it was still SO interesting to learn a little bit about mycology and enjoy the beautiful scenery of northern Arizona.
I almost forgot how gorgeous northern Arizona is when it’s not in a state of drought, on fire, or under water.
I’m not sure if I’ve been sold on mushroom foraying as a life-long hobby to quite the extent Megan has, but it was still a really cool experience to see all the different types of mushrooms and learn about them.
I guess we’ll see!
