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Adventures of the Boomer ‘Shroomers! (Brainard Lake ‘n’ the King Bolete)

Yippee!!! Rocky Mountain King Boletes are sprouting at about 10000 feet! But first a picture of Vuggie and the VW Rabbit at the Brainard Lake Picnic Area:

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Note the pale Rainbow! The mountain to the right is the glaciated Mt. Audubon (13,223′)–an Eocene-Paleocene grano-syenite intrusion (i.e., for you geos, the Audubon-Albion Stock.) Yeah, sexy geology up here.

Okay back to the shrooms:

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Could it be? Gotta look beneath the cap to be sure!

YES!!!

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Oh, what a Happy Camper. It IS the famous Rocky Mountain King Bolete (i.e., the Italians call them “Porcini”, the Germans “Steinpilz”, aka Boletus edulis!) Yup, old T’s favorite shroom–so he smiles big.

The many trails around the Pawnee Campground (1.5-hour drive from Denver) were full of many kinds of shrooms. And here’s an identification trick:

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Carry a small mirror to look under the mushroom cap. Boletes have spongy pores under their caps, not gills. Joy here is checking out the pores under an Aspen Bolete (Leccinum insigne). I know, I know, T gets too excited to check with a mirror when he think it’s a KING.

After find a few Kings, it started to rain, and it rained all night and all morning. We were very pleased with the REI Alcove, kept us nice and dry at temperatures in the mid 40’s.

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Making McNugits Omelet in an 8-inch DO in light rain. I shielded the rain with my hat–worked great and dried out the hat too. Oh yeah, the omelet was awesome on a 42° morning. As the Stark’s say: Winter is Coming!

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Driving Highway 72 south from Pawnee, we always stop at the B&F Grocery Store in Nederland, CO. It’s got a small cafe inside and they serve “Mountain Burgers” with lots of onions.

We recommend these burgers highly, and always try to get to Nederland before noon to order ’em, as the locals like ’em too and the line and wait can get long for them.

Happy Camping, T & Joy

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Adventures of the Boomer ‘Shroomers! (Hall Valley Campground)

Hall Valley Campground in Pike National Forest is one of our favorites during August as very tasty shrooms can be found nearby.

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Joy and our dog Campbell always find Aspen Boletes (Leccinum insigne):

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Last week Joy found some pretty Oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus ostreatus) growing on aspen stumps, and they smell so good too.

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While old T found chanterelles (Cantharellus ciborium) and Meadow Mushrooms (Agaricus campestris). Meadow and Prince Mushrooms (an earlier post) are better tasting relatives to the white button, portabello, and crimini shrooms you find in the produce section of grocery stores.

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Yup, Hall Valley and surrounding forests are indeed a nice place to find tasty fungus treats…and apparently Girls just wanna have fungi!

Regards, T & Joy

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Adventures of the Boomer ‘Shroomers! (Hall Campground ‘n’ the Princes)

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The PRINCES (Agaricus augustus) are out!! This week while at Hall Valley we found a few, but never enough:

Campbell (our Westie) and T pose with three Princes on a slope at about 8100′ elevation. It’s our favorite Agaricus.

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Here’s the best one, note the large cap with brown freckles on top, when young it’s cap is marshmallow shaped.

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Like all Agaricus the gills are pink when young and turn brown with age; yup Agaricus species are also the button shrooms we buy in the stores. Note the shaggy stem and the ring around the stem, all Agaricus have them. Princes smell like almonds, that’s how T recognizes them.

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Joy had never seen one before, so had to study the books to get acquainted.

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Cooked up in olive oil and butter with lots of garlic. We think they are the best tasting of all the Agaricus, including all those store-bought Agaricus (aka portabellos, crimini’s, buttons etc.) Note also the 5-inch DO’s, great for cooking side veggies.

Kali Oreksi, T

Adventures of the Boomer ‘Shroomers (Vuggie ‘n’ Hummers)

Fun times Colorado ‘shrooming, and with all the Hummingbirds in the mountains we thought we would add a feeder to Vuggie:

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A Droll Yankees ($15 window-feeder) was on sale at True Value and it has large suction cups, insect/bee guards, and a cleaning brush.

A few minutes later:

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Pretty fun in the Hall Valley Campground, as our feeder was attracting Broadtail Hummers (Selasphorus platycercus) all day. Fellow campers came over and enjoyed with us the Hummer acrobatics and territorial behavior.

Will try to post some more shroom pictures maybe tomorrow.

Nighty-night, T & Joy

Adventures of the Boomer ‘Shroomers (Pawnee ‘n’ the Vuggie)

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Pawnee Campground just west of Ward, Colorado is one of our favorites with Vuggie for the following reasons:

  1. Paved asphalt off Highway 92 all the way (+10,500-feet above sea-level)
  2. BEAR BOXES (note the brown one left of Vuggie above)
  3. Nearby lakes (Brainard, Blue, Mitchell) with nice level hikes <3 miles
  4. and, the local flora and fauna!
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Thanx to Sue and Michael Ryan of Boulder, fellow Pawnee campers who took the pictures of the MOOSE BULLS* grazing near Brainard Lake, and graciously let us post here.

Happy Camping, T & Joy

* Like FISH the plural of MOOSE is MOOSE (NOT MEESE). But our favorite “Moose” plural was what our Labrador/Canadian clients call them: “Newfie Speed-bumps”