Morel-picking season is upon us! Where to find them in the Boise National Forest

Fresh-picked morels 

Wendy was excited about our haul last year ... we picked in the Teepee Springs fire zone

Hi all,

Finally, a really nice weekend is coming our way weather-wise! Highs are predicted to be in the 70-degree range in Boise and in the lower elevations in the mountains! Blue sky and perfect weather for just about anything!

I've been seeing some pictures of morel mushrooms on Facebook, so clearly the morel-picking season has begun in the lower elevations. Now we'll have some sunshine in the forest for morels and other forest-dwelling fungi, plants and wildflowers to pop! Bring it on!

Morel-picking for private use is legal without a permit in the national forests in Idaho. Consumption is limited to 5 gallons per day. Commercial pickers are required to pay a fee. In the wake of the Pioneer Fire, the Boise National Forest is asking people who are picking for personal use to carry a brochure and map with them. The map details the locations where people can pick in the fire zone for personal use and for commercial use. There are many areas in the fire zone that will be closed to morel picking as well. Check out the map.

Blue hash marks are for person use, green for commercial pickers. 

Word has it that morels are sprouting around the Lowman area, according to the Boise National Forest. Lowman has an elevation of 3,750 feet. As things warm up, and the snow melts, morels will popping up at higher elevations. They haven't been seen too much around Idaho City yet, but it's still early.

It's also fine to pick morels anywhere else in the Boise National Forest, Payette National Forest or other forests in Idaho.

What's so special about morels? If you like to eat mushrooms, morels are a delicacy. They are positively delicious, especially sauteed in butter and garlic, and mixed with eggs or served with steak, mixed into soups -- there's just all kinds of applications.

Basidiospores at a microscopic level. The spores
fly from one mushroom to start a new fruiting
body nearby in the forest floor. I have a chapter
about the wonders of mycelia and morels in my
book, "Idaho Microbes."    

Morels are fun to pick because they're very distinctive ... they have a conical shape, kind of like a Christmas tree, but with honeycombs inside. My suggestion is to walk very slow through the woods, and stare at the ground, looking for morels. Once you see some, you'll find more. The grow prolifically the spring after a forest fire, but you can get into quite a few of them even several years after a fire.

I seem to find them more under fir trees than pine trees on open ground. If there's a lot of beargrass growing on the slope, it's not a good site for morels. Sometimes you'll find groups of morels popping up underneath the brush. Once you find a fertile area for morels, you'll keep coming back to those spots for more.

This also should be a great weekend for spring camping. Here's a previous post about some spring camping spots I'd recommend. Pick up a copy of my Owyhee Canyonlands - An Outdoor Adventure Guide for tips on 55 hikes and mountain bike rides in the Big Wide Open, plus a guide to the Owyhee Uplands Backcountry Byway.

Have fun!
-SS

May is Prime Time for Morel hunting!

Wendy was really happy to find so many morels! 

This was round one last Saturday morning 

Morels are very distinctive looking, so easy to identify

Chris Florence foraging foraging for morels.
He's a professional who sells morels at Farmer's Markets

Hi all,

For me, it's often hit and miss as to whether I carve out enough time to go morel hunting in May. Timing is everything when it comes to morel hunting, and based on my experience last weekend, I can tell you that morel season is hitting prime time right now.

Looking ahead in the next 10 days, it's supposed to stay kind of wet and cool, which hopefully will prolong the morel hunting season even more.

Wendy and I decided we wanted to get away to our Cozy Cabin in McCall last weekend -- just to get a much-needed change of scenery -- but instead of morel hunting close to town, as we often do, we headed to the burn zone of the Teepee Springs fire, a 95,709-acre blaze that ran from New Meadows to the Salmon River last August.

It's well-known that morels, the fruiting body of the morchella species, love to bloom upon disturbance, particularly from wildfires. "They like areas of disturbance -- that's what causes them to bloom," says Chris Florence, a professional wild food forager whom I wrote about in "Idaho Microbes: How tiny single-celled creatures can harm, and save our world."

"Fires can destroy the root structure of the soil, depending on how hot it burns, and that's when the mycorrhizal layer puts all of its energy into kicking out as many spores as possible to survive," he says.

And from those spores, morels are born.

Teepee Springs fire zone

I checked with the New Meadows Ranger District, asking how best to access the fire zone, and they suggested the Hazard Creek Road. One also could try to access it from the French Creek Road or the Goose Lake Road after more snow melts. The great thing about Hazard is that they'd been logging in there all week, so it wasn't open to the public until the weekend. We were one of the first people in there.

Wendy and I picked around 20 pounds of morels all around burned tree stumps, burned holes in the ground and under burned alderbrush. Some of them were just growing in the fir needles on some moist east slopes.

How to find morels? 

Try to get some intel on what elevation are the morels sprouting? Last week, it seemed to be in the 4,500-5,000 foot range. That means you could go to that elevation above Idaho City, Garden Valley or Cascade in the Boise National Forest. As time goes on, morels will be popping in the Payette National Forest above 5,000 feet. If you see a trillium growing on the forest floor, that's an indication that you might be in the right elevation for morels.

The Clearwater Complex fire zone might be another great place to look for morels.

Forest type: Florence recommends forested areas with fir trees in cooler, moister areas. I've found that east slopes can be better than south and west slopes. Ponderosa pine areas don't seem very productive for morels, in my experience. Look around rotten stumps, old logs, things like that.

Stop and stare: I find that you really have to get low to the ground and look hard for morels. Once you find some, you'll find more. It takes a lot of patience to really go slow and stare at every square yard of soil, but patience and persistence will pay off.

Go with an experienced morel picker: It always helps to go with someone who has a favorite morel-picking spot(s). They can get you started.

How to cook? 

Once you've picked some morels, I recommend sauteing them with butter and garlic and serving on steak, burger, or mixing up a morel and swiss omelette. It's totally deluxe!

Here are some good tips on cleaning and cooking morels.

Have fun!
- SS