We had been hearing rumors of boletes being found at higher elevations, so Amy loaded Michael,  Walter and me into the CrossTrek and we headed north of Trout Lake.

There was a little haze between us and Mount Adams, but it was shaping up into a beautiful day.

Before we started our foray, we visited these ancient cedar basket trees. You can tell they are old by the thickness of the scab along the edges of the scar and by the axe marks instead of the more modern saw used to make the horizontal cuts when the bark was harvested.

Distracted by exploring  spur roads, we barely made it above four thousand feet.

There were puddles here and there, but the forest floor seemed crunchy and dry. Even so, we found a variety of mushrooms,  some edible, some not so much, and few unknown to us.

Mike shouted : “Stop the car!” and lept from the back seat.

He returned with several large orange capped Lecinnum. We decided this would be a good place to start our search.

We soon found more.

My best guess is Leccinum aurantiacum or something close. I can’t keep up with recent reclassifications and this is a pretty sloppy identification, but I am certain it is Leccinum. Once considered a choice edible it now is under a cloud of doubt. I have eaten this before but am reluctant to do so now, in light of reports of serious poisoning in recent years.

We found a number of Russula species under mushrumps, lifting the forest duff as they forced their way aboveground.

Russula sp.

Russula sp.

I think these are Gnome Plant (Hemitomes congestum)) an interesting plant lacking chlorophyl which gain their nutrients by an association with certain fungi. We should come back after the rains and look for matsutake.

We did find a variety of boletes including this small, pale yellow specimen. Alas, no kings.

My best guess is Blue Bead Lilly Clintonia uniflora,

We did find a few chanterelles, in a variety of colors.

Strawberry and cream mushroom Hydnellum peckii

We had lunch on the mountain before resuming our quest.

We found a badly littered and deteriorated road which led to an abandoned campground on the Lewis River, which, because it was Labor Day weekend  was occupied.

It was damp in places along the road, affording opportunities for mushrooms like these Amanita muscaria.

There were a couple of tents hidden in the trees at the old campground.

We didn’t actually drive clear to the river. The road got too sketchy for the Subaru,  so we parked and walked the last mile.

OnX showed a bridge across the river at the campground but I  had my doubts. When we’d camped there a number of years ago, the bridge was out.

While Amy and Mike combed the hillside for chanterelles, I walked down to the river. I found my skepticism was justified – where the mapping app showed a bridge there was nothing but a tangle of logs hanging over white water. You could walk across the river but driving was not an option.

We spent some time exploring the old growth on the slope above the river.

Amy found some nice pigs ears. Gomphus clavatus

The sun was getting low when we decided it was time to go home. Amy picked her way around the potholes and washouts, following wads of toilet paper and discarded light beer cans until we reached pavement again.

We stopped to look at Langford Falls on our way back to Trout Lake.

From there it was an easy drive back to White Salmon where we dined at Everybody’s Brewing before calling it a night and dropping Mike off at his apartment. We didn’t find  the King Boletes we were looking for, but we certainly had a good day in the mountains.