Mushroom hunting...about the only "hunting" I am equipped for.

Tony, who is the area mushroom buyer occasionally goes out hunting himself at times and took us under his wings.

First lesson from Tony for Donna and I was....this is a morel mushroom, if it doesn't look similar to this then leave it!

Donna and I followed Tony and Elaine to the "secret" spot...:-)

Little did we know that we'd be going back to the same area were Donna and I had visited a few days ago just for kicks...an abandoned fire look out on top of Mount Ulysses.

Just as soon as we get there Elaine jumps on the "abandoned" fire tower and climbs straight to the top. Even my daredevil wife only went up two floors, which happens to be "two" floors more than I would go!

There is a reason why it is called an "abandoned" fire tower....because it is not maintained for safety...which is why I question the judgement of "tomboy" Elaine in climbing the tower. It's not like the forest service checks flooring, anchoring or the wire guides that hold it up yearly...which is the reason why it is called abandoned!

Elaine took this great photo from the top of the fire tower....awesome!

The tower base was 7635 feet in elevation so the top must be 90 feet more, sitting at 7725 feet in elevation...

Well, off everyone goes down the fire break (that didn't work that well) to find some virgin mushroom land.

Donna finds her first morel mushroom and that was very exciting.

For us amateurs at mushroom hunting, finding a tree or two that all the other many hunters have missed is like the mother lode!. If you find one mushroom in that area you can expect to find others very near.

We saw many trees with this glob of resin and Tony explained that it was the trees defense when the bark beetle attacks, the tree tries to push out the beetle with resin...apparently it's not working if you look around the forest.

It is so exciting when you spot a mushroom, partly because it was missed by another person and partly because they taste sooooo good.

Despite the bleak environment, this is the best mushroom nursery.

Our poor CRV should of come from the factory in this condition since that is how it usually looks.

This is Donna and my haul for the day. Although we only got about 1/15 of what Tony and Elaine collected, we ere very happy and looking forward to some great flavors.

This is Tony's tent that other pickers stop by and sell their mushrooms to him. Today's rate is about $15 pound of wet mushrooms and $100 a pound for dry mushrooms. It takes about 6 to 8 pounds of wet mushrooms to make one pound of dry morels.

Tony has a drying box that has a big fan running for at least 24 hours to dry out the morels.

Benji is eyeing $2000 or more of mushrooms in Tony's tent.

Elaine is having Tony weighing her haul for the day. She and Tony did much better by hiking further than Donna and I could, and thereby finding a virgin field of morels.

Elaine shows me a "two headed" morel!

At the end of the day, this is my favorite habit and the best way to rinse off the burnt bark, dust, heat and sore feet and enjoy the Salmon River.