Rocky Mountain NP Mycoblitz

ilbruche

ilbruche

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Jun 19, 2007
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This weekend I headed up to Rocky Mountain National Park to help out with the first "mycoblitz". This is an effort by the Colorado Mycological Society to catalog the mushroom species found in the park. The specimens collected will be kept at the park herbarium and also the herbarium at the Denver Botanical Gardens.

I don't know a ton about shrooms so it was fun to hang out with some experts and learn some things. Mushroom hunters are fun people and it was a good time.

OK. Here are some pics.

This is our small group of 4 heading out on the second day. We browsed near the Longs Peak trailhead. The area was better than some due to the higher elevation around 9500 feet.

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Mushroom growing on a mossy stream bank.

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Some sort of Russula.

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Vintage artifact Coors can.

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I used the Gossman striker knife to extract a lot of mushrooms. You really want to dig them up and not damage the base. Some mushrooms have identifying parts located at the base.

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Some nice gills.

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Gretchen is using the saw on my SAK farmer to cut some roots.

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Some growing on a mossy rotted log.

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This one is known as a "slippery jack" not sure of the latin name.

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Good place for a shelter.

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There are fungus amongus.

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Along this stream bank was a perfect place to find shrooms.

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This one was pretty cool. It has a second stalk that was curled up and hidden underground.

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Another mossy log inhabitant.

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A big Boletus Edulis "King Bolete" that the bugs already got to.

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One of the cool specimens. This one was a bright pinky/purple after it was picked. I don't think the pic shows the color right.

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Between these two trees is where my hammock was set up. Since I only had a memory card the second day I didn't get to take many pics of camp.

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Some of the cooler shrooms I found were the "Flammulina velutipes" or Velvet Foot mushroom and "Lactarius deliciosus" or delicious milky cap. The Lactarius is an easily identifable edible with an orange latex that stains green.

Hopefully I'll be back for next years survey.
 
Looks like a very interesting trip, nice scenery and some intersting learning. We get a lot of different shrooms growing around here in the spring and early summer, would like to learn more about them someday. Shrooms are pretty fascinating things.
 
Awesome pics B. Lots of fungus....... Nice place to camp too. What was the weather like?
 
j williams said:
Awesome pics B. Lots of fungus....... Nice place to camp too. What was the weather like?
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Mostly it was nice. Saturday he got a light rain in the afternoon. Sunday we had a little heavier rain. But it was warm regardless.
 
Cool!

I'd love to hike on something like that!

There's a lot of boletes in Dolly Sods where I hike but I never bring the book and I always see them early on so I'm always afraid to eat them. I've heard they kick ass!
 
hollowdweller said:
Cool!

I'd love to hike on something like that!

There's a lot of boletes in Dolly Sods where I hike but I never bring the book and I always see them early on so I'm always afraid to eat them. I've heard they kick ass!
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Yeah they are supposed to be the bomb.

But there are a lot of things to look for when identifying. There are two species that can only be identified by the color of the immature gills, one is edible, the other poisonous. I plan on learning quite a bit more before I start eating them.
 
ilbruche said:
Yeah they are supposed to be the bomb.

But there are a lot of things to look for when identifying. There are two species that can only be identified by the color of the immature gills, one is edible, the other poisonous. I plan on learning quite a bit more before I start eating them.
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Exactly my feelings.

I don't like to eat anything in the field like that where if I got sick it would be a LONG walk out.

I only eat stuff I've eaten before.

I keep hoping to find some on the way OUT then I could look them up at home and try them out.
 
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