Morels!

I woke up on Saturday morning to my alarm and just did not want to get out of bed.   I just really wanted to sleep.  Well I'm sure glad I did get up, and despite looking out my window down the Bitteroot Valley to see giant rain clouds hugging all the peaks, the day was happening.

Colin Maher, a friend who is also in the forest ecology lab, met me at my place and we drove down hwy 93 for about an hour, searching for an area of the Bitteroot National forest which burned last summer.  I had put about 15 minutes of effort looking into fire perimeters, found one that looked accessible, and decided to give it a go.  Our mission? Morels.

Morels are a highly sought after species of fungus.  Everyone raves about them around here, yet it seems like few people actually go and get them.  I don't know a lot about their ecology, but they tend to grow in recently disturbed stands (ie., after fire).  I've been wanting to go track them down ever since I spent a field season in Wind River, WA and spent every day of October eating freshly picked chantrelles.  The spring after that I was hiking, and last spring my foot was broken, so yesterday I finally got my chance! It only took 2 years...

Sometimes you have days when things just work out.  Yesterday was one of those days.  We followed the road until we happened upon a salvage logging operation, drove a ways up a really well maintained logging road with no gates, potholes, or no trespassing signs (this never happens in MT).  We parked, and hiked up into the burn.

Colin hunting the burn.

About twenty minutes later, I spotted one. My first morel!  This doesn't happen, right? All of a sudden, they seemed to be everywhere.  One always hears how it takes multiple days before you find your first.  People even go seasons without finding any. I literally parked my car, hiked up the hill, and there they were. Ours for the taking.

My first one!

It started to pour, our hands were freezing, but we pushed on until we had a good enough bounty.  We didn't see a single other person the whole time.  Izzy, my dog, had a blast.  I don't think she understood the what we were doing, but she was certainly on the hunt for something.

On the way back to the car, I yelped when I saw the biggest one of the day just minutes from where we had parked.   Yeehaw!

We were cold and hungry, so we drove into Hamilton and stopped at the Bitteroot Brewery for some amazing local beer and gourmet pub food.  The sweet potato fries are a must have.  Back home, I dumped my booty out on the counter. Not bad for an early season hunt!

Did I tell you I love Montana?