Forays
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May 2024 |
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Local Forays
We offer guided local mushroom forays, the best way to safely learn about wild fungi. Some include tailgate cooking and tasting of edibles collected. Always a fun family activity! Local forays are held on Saturday or Sunday mornings as conditions dictate, with details posted on the FFSC website.
What to wear: Layered warm clothing, sturdy footwear, and Tech-nu if you get poison oak!
What to bring: Basket or bucket to hold mushrooms, a knife and perhaps a small trowel. Waxed paper or brown paper bags to hold mushrooms. A field guide if you have one (David Arora's All That The Rain Promises is a good choice for our area).
Long Distance Forays
Santa Cruz is blessed with some of the finest foray habitat on the West Coast. Fungal enthusiasts, whether taxonomist, dye artisan or edible collector, can choose from hundreds of species available in the area. With this bounty so close at hand, many intrepid FFSC members heed the call of far-away places as they venture away from the Central Coast. Long distance forays carry the allure of rich fungal finds, amazing culinary pleasures and collaborating with other attendees to enjoy our finds and adventures.
The long distance foray season begins at Bill White’s Alaska Sports Lodge in Sterling. The week is filled with forays thru the woods and tundra in search of boletes, gypsy mushrooms and rare species. Side trips often include a clam dig at the beach, fishing, photography, bear and wildlife watching.
We next travel to Echo Summit in September for a weekend at the California Alpine Club lodge, high above Lake Tahoe. Here we convene to foray for boletes and fall species, excellent culinary adventures and comradeship as we welcome Autumn and the advent of the California fungal season.
December finds us at the Albion Field Station on the Mendocino coast. The rich fungal diversity of the area offers numerous species for collection. Boletes, matsutake, chanterelles, candy caps and much more can be found from the Jackson Demonstration Forest to Salt Point State Park. The large community room at the field station is the focal point for our infamous Saturday night potluck.
In late January, we return to Albion for our second Mendocino coast foray. Bounties of black trumpets, hedgehogs and winter chanterelles greet us as we foray through-out the area. Another amazing Saturday night potluck is enjoyed by all as we share the day’s events and experiences.
The siren call of morels takes us to the Sierras in May as the weather warms we find ourselves at the PiPi campground in the El Dorado National Forest. The group gathers to enjoy the vernal offerings of the area as morels, snow flowers, coccoras, dogwood blossoms, woodland agaricus and early boletes begin appearing. Saturday evening is punctuated with picnic tables full of potluck offerings and a roaring campfire gathering.
Adventurous members can also be found foraying up and down the West Coast and to points farther afield as they participate in individually planned forays and other mycological group events. Possibilities are endless and limited only by your imagination.
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