The Urban Farmer's Almanac

Last year was the first time I went morel mushroom hunting, and Jared and I did OK for a first try. Over Memorial Day weekend this year, I decided to head out east to a clearcut off 97 between Cle Elum and Leavenworth (which is as close as you’ll get from me, unless you’re a blood relation, in which case I might tell you which Green Trails map it’s on. And this is for a pretty mediocre patch).

With 2 kids in tow, I was only hoping to find a few and leave it at that. Which is exactly what happened. I found exactly 15 morels. Which I was pretty happy with. The sausage leek mushroom pie was delicious, but maybe not worth all the time and gas it took to track them down.

Share on Facebook

I got a free pair of tickets to Sasquatch for doing a poster, so Jared and I decided to combine our music festival-ing with some morel mushroom foraging. We’ve got the hang of hunting for chantrelles out by Mt. Rainier, but had never found a morel before. They pop up on the east side of the Cascades in the spring, and apparently Highway 97 between Cle Elum and Leavenworth has just the right conditions.

We did some research with the Forest Service and found out about places where there had been logging and burning happening in the last year, which supposedly yield good mushroom conditions the following season. Morels proved to be a fickle mistress, blending into the ground and demanding lots of time before rewarding us with a few impressive patches. The bulk of our haul (if you can call it that) came in groups, with a few random ones interspersed throughout the day.

The results of our initial trip: clearcuts were good, the burn zone didn’t give us anything (but might have been too high), and even higher up there was a lighter-colored morel that we only found a few of (but that were superior specimens.)

Share on Facebook