The Trail Up, Around, and Back Again

Add caption

        I make my way up the hill. The robins are dancing around each other occasionally fluttering over one another in their quest for food in the right side ditch. As I get closer to them they skitter away. I took one step too close. I snapped a few pictures before they flew away.
        With the robins gone, I continue up the hill to my private trail to nowhere. As I veer off the road onto the trail, the sound of robins dissipates. All I hear are a couple ravens off in the distance. I follow a slight damp trail that had dried up over the past couple days of sunshine. The roots act as flimsy stairs as I make my way up the hillside. The only fungi I see around me are some lemon cups on a broken branch off to my left and some bear bread on a dead tree about twenty feet in front of me. The ravens have gone silent. I scan around to see any hidden wildlife. I make it up the hill as far as I want to go and start moving to the left. There is an easy path that takes me to moss trail that goes on for about thirty feet. I stand at the beginning of  the moss trail. A nursery log blocks my path further left. A tiny mushroom is peeking its cap out of its moss bed. I don't know what type of fungus this. I snap a couple photos to cross reference with my mushroom books. I close my eyes and breath in the cool air taking in  the aroma of the moss and dirt. I can hear a small creek down from my position. I pass on going further left and start making my way down the hill.

Mycena sp. ?

        I hear a deep breath and freeze. My heart is racing. All I have with me is a magenta camera, a lighter, and an electronic cigarette. What am I going to do vapor the bear to death with black cherry nicotine. I fearfully and cautiously look around for the bear. Nothing. My heart starts to slow down. I need to start carrying bear mace with me. I take another step and hear the deep breath again. I look down at my feet and raise my right foot and set it down. The moss is what is scaring the living shit out of me. I keep walking knowing the moss was only sighing under the weight of my body.
        The path down the hill is more treacherous than the way up. There are spots that I have to jump down and they are slick with wet mud. I quickly hop over four roots avoiding the mud as much as possible. I am surprised my clumsiness has caught up with me today. The creek in now within my sight thought I'm at an impasse. It is a good fifteen feet drop to the creek. I look left and right to find a path down this cliff. the right goes further up but the left goes down. I have to decline down a rotten log and avoid the bramble of dead salmon berry bushes. My left foot slips of the rotten log nearly making me fall into the thorns of the dead salmon berries. I regain my balance and make my way down. I admire the trickle of the small creek. There is a log that goes across up ahead and it leads to houses on the hillside.
        I must be next to Fairy Chasm road. I cross the creek without incident till I make my way up the other side. Not realizing the depth of the mud, I stepped in. As I pulled my left foot up I nearly lost my shoe. I escaped the mud trap and made my way to the street. It is Fairy Chasm. I made my way down the sunny street passing my mother's house and the only thing I could think was I need bear mace. 

 

Thinking of Psilocybin

Deer Scat

         I had an interesting talk with a customer at work the other day. They were asking me how my school was going and I told he my project learning about mushrooms. She was intrigued by my project. She proposed an interesting theory on the beginning’s of man’s brain development. She believe’s early man ate psychedelic mushrooms and it caused a chemical change that led the complex human brain. It is a subject scientist haven’t quite figured it out. I used to think that it was the proteins from the meat we ate that caused are brain development but if that was the case tigers and sharks would be the Einsteins of our time.

Her argument is possible.

        In one book I am reading, Mycophilia: Revelations from the Weird World of Mushrooms, the author talks about the Psilocybin mushrooms. She talks about it affects the nerve receptors which can cause improved senses such as heightened smell and sight. Maybe early humanity's improved intelligence did get caused from a chemical change after eating psychedelic mushrooms.

Unidentified mushroom

I have never tried shrooms myself. I have always been curious but have been to scared to try them. The author explains her own experience with shrooms and how Psilocybin were the black sheep of the mushroom world. She also stated that there have been no deaths associated with poisoning. The only deaths linked to shrooms have been accidents; high school or college students that walked onto a busy highway or approaching dangerous animals in nature. The author’s situation was similar to my own. She was too afraid to try them because of their status and their presumed danger. Watching the movie The Bear scared me as a kid. After seeing the bear cub eat some hallucinogenic mushrooms and having evil frogs fallling from the sky, I was too afraid to try mushrooms as a teenager. My mother furthered discouraged me as a kid with her own psychedelic mushroom horror story.

Lemon cups (Bisporella citrina)

        The biggest risk with taking a trip on shrooms is not being in a safe environment  or not being in a good mood. The author says that you need friends to keep you safe and if your not in the right mood it can ruin the experience. Even though she states that, in her quest to try shrooms she admits that she might not have all the safeguards in place because of the environment she would be in.

Red Banded Polypore (Fomitopsis pinicola)

Common False Truffle (Elaphomyces granulatus)

        Natives in the southwest United States have a history of using psychedelic substances. I haven’t met any Alaskan Natives whose culture uses mushrooms. Every elder that I have asked has known absolutely nothing of harvesting mushrooms not even edible ones. I still kind of curious and want to try them but until I know more about them. I won’t eat any edible mushrooms I find (haven’t found any yet) until I am 100% certain it is safe to eat. Some edible mushrooms can cause problems if eaten followed by the person drinking alcohol. 

Walking Down a New Old Trail

Odin and Adrianna on the trail.

        I told Adri I wanted to go to Ward Lake. I was shocked to find out they were upgrading the trail so it is more wheelchair accessible. There was gravel over the natural dirt trail and I felt like the Lake had just been raped. The devil’s club and other bushes that once  gave shade to the trail were now  long gone. I appreciate that they are making it accessible to people who haven’t been able to enjoy its beauty but I feel they have gone too far.  The trail was widened and the outside edges of trail were completely stripped. Exposed roots cut to shit. Nothing close to the trail survived the chainsaw though the trip wasn’t all disappointment from the destruction. I was able to find mushrooms that were springing to life in view to only those who were searching about a third of the way up the trail. 

Mycena sp.

        The first mushrooms I found were tucked away cream colored bell shaped caps with translucent necks. I don’t know what kind of mushroom these are. Adri, Odin our dog and I continued after the first discovery. Odin pulled me hard as he sniffed every crack and crevice. We had to move over so the workers could spread the gravel with their machinery. As we got closer to the bridge I notice the beaver dam had been cleared. I hanged my head with shame and disgust. I think it will be awhile til I come back here. I enjoyed the cool enclosure the lake used to have and the protection from the rain it offered. I didn’t need the protection today because there was only a couple of small clouds in the sky.

Membranous Dog-Lichen (Peltigera membranacea)

Orange Slime Mold?

      
         I decided to step away from the gravel road to stomp on some forest floor and Adri took Odin further up the trail. The forest floor quickly turned to muskeg and I nearly lost my left shoe. I had to tip my toes upward before pulling my foot out to keep my shoe on. I noticed some small orange fungi as I cleared the little bog. I made my way up back to the gravel trail. I had to climb up on my hands and knees to get back on the trail. I tried catching up to Adri but I got distracted by some orange looking slime. I have never seen orange slime in anything but a cylindrical container labeled silly putty. I couldn't wait to show Adri I knew she was going to say it looked gross.

Nice spot next to Ward Lake trail

Mushrooms

My favorite spot in the woods

In the woods the fungi sleep,

Resting,

Waiting,

For coniferous and deciduous souls to keep.

Both delicious and deadly,

Nutty,

Bitter,

Dinner’s done and the table’s ready.

Feeding on the fallen dead trees,

Cedar,

Hemlock,

Eaten away in the soft wet breeze.

Mycena sp. ?

If you watch the red squirrel’s shuffle,

Watch,

Dig,

And if your lucky it might be a truffle.

Even a fruitless trip can be rewarding,

Peaceful,

Quiet,

No atrocities like water-boarding.

I love my time I spend in the woods,

Relaxing,

Learning,

Trying to find all the edible goods.

Old Forgotten Road

             
       It’s was beautiful day at Ward Lake earlier today. Adri and I decided to go down the old Ward Lake Road. We parked over by the bridge and Adri went off to run on the trail around the lake. We only had about forty minutes till we had to pick up David from school. I searched the bank near the large pond on the right-side of the dead end. After not finding anything I walked across the bridge with my hands in my blue hoodie keeping me warm. My hands ached badly today. The cold wind was taking some of the fun out of the adventure but I didn't let it ruin my trip. I was afraid I might not find anything with snow still present, but within a minute of walking down a small little trail just past the bridge I found my first mushroom of the day. 

Lemon cup

        Off the tip of a fallen cedar needle, there was two lemon cup mushrooms. One larger than the other it was like a father and his son. The mushrooms were so tiny it made my small hands seem large. David would love to be out here with me finding new things. I feel like a kid out here with a renewed interest in my surroundings. I forgot how amazing it was out here. 

        I found the second mushroom while I was still looking at the first one. All that was left was a near-transparent cap that had no gills or stem and it was alone on the moss embankment. It had the diameter of a fifty-cent piece and the cap had a height of about an inch. It appeared to had been munched on by worms. I wonder if it was a species of bolete had been affected by the weather. If I remember correctly boletes are generally edible though there are no transparent boletes to my knowledge.

Unidentified mushroom cap

Unidentified mushroom cap

        I was only minutes into my trip and had found two different species of fungi. I moved on from the moss embankment with a little hop in my step. I was seconds away from singing Travis Tritt’s “Great Day to Be Alive.” I passed a few evergreen ferns and some other flora I couldn't identify about but all of it was shades of dark green. The further from the trail I went the more snow there was. It wasn’t enough to make a snow man only enough to make it look like a thick frost. I made it to a fallen tree and found a species I believe I had crossed in one of my mushroom books.

Hairy Stereum (Stereum hirsutum)

Hairy Stereum (Stereum hirsutum)

        Could this be turkey tail fungi? It is banded and had teeth-like gills This is the first fungus I have ever seen that has teeth-like gills. I won’t know for sure until I get home. The tree is covered in them, like scales on a fish, only a vertical fashion rather than a fishy horizontal display. It is crazy how they look like a turkey’s tail fanned-out. I spot a couple lemon cups on the same tree. I made my back to the original trail I came down.

Unidentified Bracket Fungus

Unidentified Bracket Fungus

          I wanted to head back to the road and start heading for the lake to meet up with Adri so I started back-tracking my steps. I made my way back to the road without any problems and not without witnessing some lichen in my quest for mushrooms. I decided to check the opposite side of the road this time. This side appeared to have more dead leaves as ground cover. It was a brown mushy-fibrous blend and a perfect fertilizer. I saw a couple standard bear bread on a tree until something else caught my eye. On a tree near where I was looking there was brown disks adhered to its surface. I have never seen these before. They have to be related to bear bread but they were softer and more flimsy. I was tempted to break one off but I chose not too. This has been an amazing day. I wonder how many species I can find out here. The most frequent mushrooms I have been finding are the lemon cups followed by the artist conk (a.k.a. bear bread)I won’t have the time today but I am definitely coming out here again. I am so glad I chose to research fungus.

The Fungihorn

        Well, today I have decided to take my son with me. Adrianna went to the store to go get groceries and I had to pick up David. He is hesitant about the trip but I tell him we will check around the little deep hole that my brother Tanner and I used to swim in as kid. As soon as we make to the bus stop by Schoenbar Middle School, David wants to sit down. I tell him we are almost there but he does not want to walk. Maybe this was a poor decision to bring him with me. I finally coax him up from the bus stop bench and we continue to walk to the deep hole near Schoenbar Middle School.

        We made it to the deep hole to find eagles had taken over the area. There were about 6-7 eagles in the area and three were immature. The eagle teens lacked their parents’ bald heads. As I searched the area for fungus, I found nothing but dirt and twigs painted white with eagle excrement and by the looks of things they have been here a while. I decided we would move on. I told David he could choose the next spot. He decided we should check Schoenbar Trail.

        I looked in the ditches and the hillside of the trail and there is nothing. I told David we would have better luck finding mushrooms if we went into the woods. He was very apprehensive about going in the woods. He has never been in the woods. I told him not to worry and that it was still a little early for bears to come out. The hillside is steep and I am constantly watching David making sure he makes it up the hill without too much difficulty. Once we are further up the hill, David makes his first discovery. He found a bear bread. It is a species I am unfamiliar with; it is more spherical in shape and had more color than the bear bread I found a couple days ago. It still had a blank slate on the underside but the top appeared as though it had been painted with a cherry varnish. Great discovery David!

Lemon cups

         I looked around the floor as we make our way back home through the woods. I heard David calling me to come over to look at something. He found more mushrooms. This time he found a stick longer than a ruler covered in yellowish orange mushrooms. They looked like little cups of OJ. David put the stick up to lips and played away on his fungihorn. I told David not to eat any of the mushrooms because they may be poisonous and that when we get home he needs to wash his hands good. David was making all the discoveries.

Cantharellus ignicolorn a shelter made out of fallen lumber back here. 

        I wonder if there ever was some homeless person that made the shelter his refuge. David and I made our way around the roots of a fallen tree. The roots made a wall of soil and rotting wood and just as stepped down from a root step I made my first discovery.  It was a decaying yellow mushroom the cap was cream in color and was funnel-shaped. I am not sure what this species is. I looked to see if it has any neighbors. A couple feet away there is a bunch of decaying mushrooms that looked like mini-tree stumps disintegrating. The day has been very productive and we were near the end of the woods. I looked around for a way down that is safe and easy to get down. I hopped down some rocks praying that I don’t fall. I made it down safely and David bounded down without a care in the world and made it down unscathed.

Unidentified mushroom remains