Burn Morels

Last year the Caldor fire ripped through the Eldorado National Forest (including one of our favorite climbing areas- Lovers Leap). While the fire was really destructive and smoky, one benefit is that a year later, you can find crops of burn morels!

Avery and Morgan decided to try their luck at morel hunting. Avery bought a manual and a burn map at Modern Forager. Due to road closures on the west side of the fire, Morgan decided their best bet was to hunt off of Silver Fork Rd south of Kyburz.

They arrived in Kyburz just after lunch on Saturday. Looking for “north facing slopes” they investigated a few locations off the road, but found nothing. The trees were they right type and the right amount of burnt, but there weren’t any signs of mushrooms. From their limited experience hunting chanterelle and black trumpet mushrooms, Avery thought maybe it was too dry.

Feeling like they weren’t going to find any morels, they instead broke out their fishing rods and threw spinners into a pool in the American River. As they were fishing, a man approached carrying a bag of what looked suspiciously like morels! He stopped to talk and asked if they had any luck. Avery revealed that they had caught no fish and found no morels. They told the hunter where they had looked so far for morels. The hunter said that he had found his on a seep 200ft lower in elevation. He showed Avery his stash and gave her a handful of morels. He said to fry them up in butter and eat them on toast. He also said they had to look for little brown indicator mushrooms.

Rejuvenated in their morel mission, Avery and Morgan immediately packed up their fishing rods and got back into the car. They opened up their compass app on their phones and found out they were at about 4900′ elevation. Morgan wanted drive down 200′ and start looking. They headed back down the hill toward a stream on the map. Radios in hand, they split up. Avery (code name: BlueB Basket) walked toward a dried up creek and Morgan (code name: Morel Master) headed in the opposite direction.

Near the dry creek, Avery started seeing orange cup mushrooms. The book said these were good indicator mushrooms. There were also a lot of holes in the ground. Avery suspected that someone (maybe the hunter) had already been to this area.

Following the indicator mushrooms, Avery moseyed up the slope, noticing that the ground was getting wetter. There was a seep! Then, glancing around the area, she noticed that brainy texture buried in the ground. It was her first morel!

After carefully excavating the dirt with her bare hands, she found that it wasn’t just 2 morels, but a whole cluster buried underground! Avery took pictures and radioed Morgan to come look to her area to look for more. While Morgan was on his way, Avery continued looking for morels going up the seep. She didn’t find any more until another 50ft up the hill. Suddenly, she saw one growing out of the duff. With a shriek of joy, she radioed Morgan that she found one… no two.. no three… another one! A whole patch!

30 minutes later, they had harvested what Morgan estimated to be 3lbs of morels. The seep ended and they hunted around the area for another 45 minutes or so. Avery found 2 more solitary morels. Morgan went back to the patch and got another sweatshirt-pouch-full of morels that they missed the first time. As the daylight started to fade, they decided to call it and camp for the night.

Morgan made marinated steak on the twig camp stove that we got from Brandon and Willbe for Christmas. It was really tasty. We decided to wait till we got home to wash and try the morels.

The next day, Avery found another small patch of morels on another seep at about 4800′. She wanted to hunt some more, but Morgan was ready to drive them home. There were also no convenient roads into the fire on their way home as Alder Ridge Rd and part of Mormon Emigrant Trail was also closed. They were totally satisfied that they found anything at all!

At home, they made morel pizza for dinner. Avery and Blueberry ate their whole pizza. The next day Morgan made morel quiche and morel/trumpet/shallot soup. Both Moms also got a share of the booty! We can’t wait to go again!