We just had the best day ever. Just as we were getting into our productive flow in the morning, Elsa editing a video and myself a podcast, we were interrupted by some exciting news. An awesome dude named Jordan, who had parked by our camp for several days, found a bunch of morel mushrooms.

When Jordan got back to his truck, he offered us some mushrooms and intel on where to find them. He found a bunch within a quarter mile of the Scamp, in slightly higher elevation, growing alongside small manzanita bushes. We figured they would be growing near the creek, since all the mushrooms we have found in Colorado preferred some moisture. To our surprise, the morels were in pretty dry soil.

Before heading out to search we cooked up the batch of morels Jordan shared with us. Neither Elsa or I had ever eaten morels before. We cut them in half and sautéed them in ghee with a clove of minced garlic. They were delicious! I have heard people geek about how good morels are my whole life, now I understand the hype. They have a satisfying texture, a bit like white meat, but not fibrous, with a satisfying texture akin to al dente egg noodles. This description doesn’t do them justice really, they’re easily the most delicious thing I’ve ever found or caught in the wild.

As soon as Elsa and I picked the cast iron clean with our fingers, our quest began. We grabbed a couple knives, not enough water, a laced produce bag, and we were off. We marched through the forest for well over an hour. Scouring all the micro biomes, burned ponderosas, downed trees, needle covered areas, grassy fields, rocky terrain and many manzanita patches. After about an hour and a half of searching, Elsa screamed “AAH! I GOT ONE, I FOUND ONE!”

I ran over to her and there it was, our first wild morel. A cute little pinecone looking mushroom, oblong and conical, perfectly camouflaged in its environment. Once we saw the one, we understood why we were having such a hard time finding them. This little thing was near invisible in the underbrush, and was slightly covered by a young manzanita shrub.

Seconds later, I found our second morel just feet from the first. They say that where you find one, there are many, and this turned out to be true. We spent the next couple hours scouring about a 50 square foot area from the first morel. We found around 15 mushrooms in this area.

Most of the mushrooms we found were tucked into other small bushes, or buried under pine needles. The area we were searching had burned a few years prior, so there was a good bit of ash under the pine needles where the morels were growing. Very few of them were visible without moving foliage around. I fashioned myself a shroomin’ stick to help me push pine needles and save my back. After about 4 hours of foraging, we headed back to the Scamp. We were tuckered out from all the sun exposure and squatting.

When we got back to the Scamp, our friend Trevor was there. We cooked up the morels, rehydrated and excitedly romped back into the forest. We ended up finding another bag full with Trevor and headed back home as the sun set. We immediately cooked our third batch of the day and ate them with Trevor. We spent about 8 hours total foraging for morels, and ate them for breakfast, lunch and  dinner. Suffices to say we’re hooked.

UPDATE

Two days later we were back on the hunt. We found a new area deep in the forest that hadn’t been picked over at all. Elsa is awesome at finding the first mushroom in new spots. Once we find one in a new area, generally there are at least 5 more in a 10 yard radius.

The morels we found on this day were far larger, many resembling wizard hats. Lots of them were found under mature manzanita bushes. One bush had 10 mushrooms under it.

We collected a full bag on this day, far more than we could eat in one sitting, so we decided to dry some of them. I cut all of the mushrooms in half. I put the ones that were damaged by bugs in one pile, and all the clean ones in another pile. We ate the damaged pile right then and dried the clean ones.

Before cooking them this time, we washed them off in salt water to get rid of the bugs, larvae and dirt. We then laid them out on a towel to dry for a bit. After we ate, we strung up the morels we set aside to dry. We used a needle and thread, poking through each stem so they would hang on the line. Once they were all strung up, we hung them by the wood stove with fans blowing on them.

When we woke up this morning we transferred the drying morels outside to the sun. Today is a blue bird day with a slight breeze, perfect to dry the mushrooms and keep bugs off of them.

Hopefully they all turn out! The internet says we can store them in sealed containers for up to 6 months. Elsa and I are excited to continue learning to forage for natural food. We anxiously await the day we can have a garden of our own, but for now we are learning to use natures garden.