We had a good time! There were lots of very knowledgable people and information-dense displays, as well as a lot of creative booths selling their wares. A lot of the information kinda went over our heads since they would pull out all the Latin taxonomical names. Me and my dad agreed, we much prefer the common names. However I gained the understanding that the genus is useful for understanding the relatedness and characteristics of the different species.
I wish I snapped a photo of the table they had from the morning's foray, they had such a variety and little post-it notes with each of their names. They even found a amanita muscaria, one of those kinds of mushrooms. One of the booths was selling some tea made from it, and I kinda wanted to get some, but seeing as my dad was right there with me, decided not to in case he would not be happy about that. I wonder what the effects would be like, seeing as the psychoactive element is muscimol and not psilocybin, the latter of which I have experience with.
We attended a really interesting hands-on demonstration of using mushrooms as a dye. It was a spur of the moment decision, but both me and my dad thoroughly enjoyed it, seeing how they made really beautiful earth-tone colors. We decided that we wanted to give it a try, and it turns out a few of the mushrooms that grow at my parents' house are used for dying.
At the festival we found out they were going to be doing another foray the next morning at the Caspar Scales, and we decided to attend. We are not very familiar with the area so we decided to drive around and see if we could find the location, as to not need to find it in a rush in the morning. One of the hosts gave us some vague directions and we roughly followed them, when we found a parking area for a set of trails. We didn't think we were in the right location, but we decided just to walk around for a bit and explore. This was some really beautiful forest, redwoods surrounding us, their fallen needles coating the floors, small creeks lined with dense ferns on nearly every hillside. It was so fresh and quiet, in that moment I was truly at peace.
On our way out we ran into someone who was also leaving. We asked him if he knew where the Caspar Scales were and it turned out we were there! It would be useful if they had some signage saying as such. The guy was friendly and it turned out he was also a mushroomer. He showed us his haul of chanterelles and various other mushrooms before we said our goodbyes and got dinner. We went to a nice little Mayan fusion restaurant that had live music from a guitarist/singer playing some 60s classics. After stopping by a brewery on our way back, we saw an illuminated cross section of an old-growth redwood log.
On it were little markers on the tree's rings of important years. To think of all the history one being lived through. The tree was about 1800 years old before it was cut down. I wish my photo captured the true scale of it, absolutely massive. I can't imagine a tree that large, and I'm disappointed I likely never will get the chance to see one in person.
The next morning we went back to the Caspar Scales for the foray. There were about 25 people in attendance and we were led by a CalFire ranger and part-time mycologist. He took us to a spot from where we all split up and hunted for about an hour. Most people were looking for edibles, but not knowing what was edible or not, I just went around collecting, hoping to get them identified after we finished.
These were a few notable ones that I found really beautiful. The second one looked like the button mushrooms that you could get at the supermarket, and so I thought maybe could be edible, but was mistaken. I showed my collection to the leader, but his explanations used all the scientific terminology that I was not familiar with and it all went over my head, but the message was clear: none of these are edible or all that interesting.
It was nice to be able to go on it, but I would like to be a bit more educated on the terminology and species in order to properly be able to participate.
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