So it rained tons in the bay area last week and as promised – I went mushroom hunting! There were mushrooms!! Tons of them!!!! Mushroom hunting is analagous to a treasure hunt – you are hiking along and then you spot one and it elicits a primordial joy that shoots adrenaline through your veins.  I took my friend Rachael, who I’ve been friends with since we met at sleepaway camp nearly 2 decades ago, to Point Reyes National Seashore for an epic hike and hunting adventure. Rachael is a line cook at Michael Mina in SF and has been getting more into foraging for greens for her garnishes and Pt Reyes is one of the only places in the bay area where foraging is legal. My advisor told me about a great hike down the bayview trail, which we expected to be about 6 miles, but we ended up going nearly 9 miles overall! We hiked down the bayview trail to the muddy hollow trail to the bucklin trail, which was about 6 miles, and then when we finally got to the top of the ridge we realized we still had 2.6 miles to hike down the inverness ridge trail to get back to our car! Luckily there were gorgeous expansive views of the bay from the ridge. While we didn’t find many choice edibles on the hike, we found tons of beautiful and diverse mushrooms, and Rachael really caught the mushroom hunting spirit :) She kept swearing at the deceptive rocks and leaves that faked her out for mushrooms – the sign of  a true mushroom fanatic :)

Saw a couple of newts crossing the trail on the hike – they are so cute! We also saw a bunny at one point.

First choice edible!

Wow there was a lot of uphill on this hike – definitely a good bun workout!

But the views from the top of the ridge were worth it :)

How beautiful is our state flower?

A man hiking the opposite direction as us was very concerned when he saw us stopping to take pictures of the Amanitas – he said don’t touch! poison! For the record, you cannot get hurt from touching mushrooms! Even poisonous ones!

The Lactarius were out in super abundance too!

These were everywhere!

 

 

 

Most people don’t know that a lot of mycorrhizal mushrooms (mutualistically associated with tree roots) aren’t mushrooms at all – they are more like crusts – like these Thelephoras which are the most abundant symbionts of trees in Pt Reyes!

They are easy to pass by without noticing but I think they are rather cute, don’t you?

These are actually edible too but I’ve never tried them – I just think they are super pretty to look at!

 

Bet you didn’t know that mushrooms came in this many colors!

Happy hunting!