My Pacific Northwest: Chantrelles & Maple Pass Loop Oct 1-2, 2011

Last Saturday my friend Ken, Adventure Dog and I set out in search of the wild chantrelle. So I can’t really say where we went, since we did find a few and I’m not sharing. : ) He is a member of the Puget Sound Mycelogical Society, and they had a fungi genius down at the Soda Springs campground near Mt Rainier, so we brought our findings to him and he identified, gave harvesting tips, and blew my mind with the amount of knowledge he had.

While we were there we crossed a little bridge and sampled the soda springs water. It is naturally carbonated and I don’t care for club soda, but it was definitely interesting and worth trying. It bubbles up from a couple little springs under the trees on the far side.

Then we took off looking for more mushrooms. We did pause to sauté up the ones we had found. Both a pan of chantrelles and a large lobster mushroom. Yes, that is smoked salmon and both merlot and chocolate milk at the table. Don’t be hatin’.

We looked well past sundown, which was interesting. Once night fell we could see frogs in the road, hopping across and other creatures like A DEER! ACCK! Whew, he missed it. Actually during the course of the day, Ken avoided hitting a red shafted flicker which seemed to launch itself at his windshield, a fat old dog that seemed to think it had the right of way on the highway, and that deer that leaped out in the dark in front of us. It was an exhilarating drive.

On one of our last daylight stops, I smelled something awful. It got worse the closer to the river I got, and when I stepped out on the river bank I saw why. Salmon were spawning and dying along the banks in numbers I’d never experienced before.

It was a fun day and hopefully there will be more weeks of chantrelles to come.

The next day my cousin Vanessa met me at my house and we took Adventure Dog way way out on Hwy 20 just pass Rainy Pass to an amazing trail called Maple Pass Loop. I love loop trails, since you are constantly seeing different scenery, but these landscapes I wouldn’t mind seeing again. It had a little of everything… blue berries, beautiful clear lakes, snow, wildlife, and a good workout.

The fall colors had just started, yet there were still wildflowers blooming, including lupine, paintbrush, and various other flowers. I don’t know what the yellow succulent flower is. If you do, post it in the comments! Also represented was one of my faves, Old Man of the Mountain. You can tell it by the shaggy hair. It reminds me of a poem:

My beard grows to my toes

I never wears no clothes

I wraps my hair

Around my bare

And down the road I goes.

The larches were not fully gold yet, although a few of them had turned. They are beautiful trees. Even the greenest of them had an odd glowing hue to it. I would like to do some more larch hikes and learn more about these interesting trees. I can’t look at them without hearing a Monty Python voice saying, “the LARCH.”

We had a great time on this hike. Vanessa has a great sense of humor to go along with her terrific sense of adventure.

Cedar had a great time too. He looked at all the lookout points, played with another dog on the trail, walked over the snow, and charmed several other hikers including one that tried to snap pictures of him. He didn’t hold very still for her. Luckily I have treats in my pockets. ; )