Mushrooms for Hikers with River Augenstein

Mushroom expert River Augenstein sits down with Jennie to share about the secret world of Fungi and mushrooms and how hikers can learn to identify and forage for them as well as some of his favorite mushrooms and where to find them.

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Transcript

 Welcome to the Washington State Hiking Podcast. I'm your host, Jennie Thwing Flaming, and I'm your co-host Craig Romano. Craig and I are happy to have you here. We provide practical and timely seasonal hiking advice for hikers, trail runners, and potential hikers and trail runners of all skill and ability levels that is helpful, accurate, fun, and inclusive. This week's episode is sponsored by the San Juan Islands Visitors Bureau. Thank you. In the San Juan Islands, every path invites connection to the outdoors. Come immerse yourself in nature and outdoor activities like hiking, biking, and kayaking. Embrace a fresh perspective as you relax and take in the breathtaking beauty of the San Juan Islands. Go Will watching with local experts and learn about the islands variety of whales. Wildlife and ecosystems. It's an unforgettable experience. Start planning your visit@visitsanjuans.com today and set your mind to island time. I. Our guest today is River Augustein, and River is the manager of the Do Bay Resort on Orcas Island. But that is not why he's here today. Today we are gonna be talking about mushrooms, fungus, fun guy. You are in fact a fun guy at River. So welcome to the Washington State Hiking Podcast. Thank you so much, Jennie. It's, it's really a pleasure to be here today. Yeah, it's great having you. This is , a fun topic. So let's start off, I'd love to hear like how, how did you get to Orcas Island? 'cause that's where you live, and how did you get into fungi? Great. In terms of coming to Orcas Island, my wife and I managed a retreat center called Far Horizons, which is in the Sierra Nevada, Sierra Nevada mountains of, uh, California. And we got a call out of the blue that, the sister facility to Far Horizons, which is here on Orcas Island, it's called in, um, was we're looking for managers and , they wanted to interview us. They flew us up to. Orcas and, we, , looked at the place and looked at the position and decided it was something we couldn't turn down. And that was 20 years ago and, uh, amazing. Still here. So it must be pretty great if you're still there. It's pretty amazing lifestyle, living on the San Juan Islands. Um, yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. Cool. Okay, so how did you get into. Mushrooms and fungi. Um, well, I, I kind of love this story. I'll, I'll also try to keep it a little bit short, but, um, I was living in, on the central coast of California and, um, I had just asked my, my now wife to marry me, and and it was our last few days in California and I was riding my bike in a canyon and two, two guys come out of the forest and they got this huge box of massive chare mushrooms, which if you don't know, CREs are delicious. And one of the, one of the, uh, favorite So good culinary mushrooms. Yeah. And I thought, wow, that's. That's something else. And so, um, after coming back from Southeast Asia, I was able to go back. I'm from Indiana originally and I was able to go back and visit my, uh, grandma on her farm in Indiana. And she, it was the springtime and she said, I'd love to take you out and, um, to look for more mushrooms and, uh, we. Eventually after looking for a long time and almost giving up, found them. And the first one I found, I was so excited and then I, I looked up and looked around and there was dozens and dozens and dozens of them. So that got me really charged up. So that got me started. , I am for the most part, self-taught. I do have a, a background in natural history, but I just spend a, a, a lot of time in the forest, looking for motions. I have heard that a key thing is to. Look a lot. Yes. You know, like there's no substitute for just like, there's no, yeah. And, and I've, I'm not a mushroom expert at all, but I feel so often, even just in my yard, like all of a sudden you notice a mushroom one day and then there's like a ton of them and it's sort of like you get your eyes on and you're like, yeah. Oh, I see them everywhere now, so, yes. Absolutely. That's, that's pretty cool. That's a good way to describe it. Yeah. Yeah. And so, and so I do have, you know, I, I do have a background. I, you know, I know most of our, most of the native plants, I know most of the animals. I, I have a penchant for kind of learning Latin. Scientific names handy. Oh, that's kind of an easy thing for me. So Uhhuh So yeah, all those interests aligned and um, fungi really pulled me in for sure. That's so cool. Okay. Um. There's a lot of different things I wanna ask you. So my brain is kind of going a little bit here. Let's start with just some real basics river. People listening to our podcast are hikers and we like to include some of these things, like things about wildlife and plants that people see on the trail like we're doing today. So can you talk just a little bit about. Fungi in general? Like what are they, what are some kind of unique and cool things about them? It's one of the things that excites me the most. I'll talk a little bit about, what, people call the wood wide web, which is basically, the mycelium and fungi. Fungi that kind of spreads throughout the whole forest. Well, literally everywhere. I mean, we have, mycelium is literally everywhere, in substrates and wood underground. Sometimes in our skin. I mean, it's, fungi inhabits almost every place you can imagine. , When you find a mushroom, , you're basically finding the fruiting body of the actual organism, which is the mycelium, which lives in soil or, or wood, and. It's basically there to, to disperse spores. The sexual function, if you will, of mushrooms. And, people are always like, oh, you picked a mushroom, you killed the mushroom. And that is not the case. You basically, it's akin to picking an apple off of a tree. Essentially the mushroom is made of the same, material, if you will, as the mycelium. It just becomes very much condensed, and it's like the mycelium comes together and forms this fruiting body. Yeah, that makes sense because a lot of it is. Like invisible or underground or in all those different places that you talked about, right. The mycelium. Yeah. Which is pretty amazing. And if you turn over a log or you look underneath things, oftentimes you can see the actual mycelium. It kind of looks cobwebby. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, they, they all look a little different cool. Yeah. And here in Washington, maybe everywhere, but I know here in Washington, spring and fall is really the times where we see the fruit, the mushrooms, right? Yeah. That's like on the trail or in our yards or city parks. Yeah, that's correct. And fall is by far the more, productive and bountiful time. Yep. I do see. A smaller amount and, I'm speaking for Orcas Island here. It may be a little bit different in the Cascades, honestly. Yep. Or the, Olympic Peninsula. Yeah. But here on Orcas, we definitely get a fruiting in spring. Spring is the time that you find more elses. Mm-hmm. And you do not find them in the winter or fall. Mm-hmm. Um, but I do, I do see some crossover species that, uh. Will fruit in spring. Mm-hmm. And fall. Yeah. I wanna ask you a little bit about like safety and mushrooms, because I'm sure there are people listening and they're like, oh my God. Do you pick mushrooms when you're hiking? I, do sometimes, but only like the one that I really know. Um, so in. For some reason, like I feel way more comfortable foraging berries like than mushroom, like mushrooms just kind of intimidate me, uh, and I'm sure that I'm not alone in that. So River, could you share with everybody a little bit about like, if. If you want. Well, I mean, first of all, you don't have to eat them. You can just appreciate them and like be like, Hey, that's a cool mushroom. I don't know what it is, so I'm not going to eat it. But I'm happy to see it, know that it's there and it's seasonal. It's only there for a little while. Yeah. But for people who do want to actually forage and eat mushrooms, like, can you talk a little bit about safety and like how did you get to the point where you felt comfortable? Identifying mushrooms safely on hikes. Yeah. Um, you know, I guess a starting point would be, you know, oftentimes people are afraid that if they touch the mushroom and they put their hands in their mouth that they're gonna die. Well, that that's. There's no possibility of that, first of all. So just dispelling that way. That's great. News is a, is a good thing. Yay. Typically you have to eat a pretty decent amount , of any of the toxic mushrooms to, to kill you or, even make you sick. A few other considerations. , One would be that when preparing any edible mushroom, it's really important to cook it very thoroughly. , Or it can cause. Gastrointestinal distress. Mushrooms are the, this what gives mushrooms structure , is a compound called chiton, which is basically what crab shells are composed of. So you can imagine trying to digest crab shells, doesn't go over very well. I would never eat a mushroom that I wasn't a hundred percent sure of. I personally use a dichotomous key, which is, , I don't know if you're familiar with that, but it, it's a, series of questions that you ask about your specimen. Hmm. Does, does the mushroom have a cap? Um, if, if so, go to question three. Um, is the mushroom red? If so, go to question know and it, and so it, it, it, it's always asking you these two questions and they'll move you along. So first of all, you have to have the, the dichotomous key. There's a good dichotomous key in a book called Mushrooms Demystified. Hmm. Um. Sounds helpful. Yeah, it's, it's a really great book. It's a little bit out of date. It was kind, it's kind of the West Coast mushroom Bible. Um, although these days, there's other ones that are, uh, more up to date, but you need to find a book with a dichotomous key. Mm-hmm. The problem with that for beginners is that, um. It's, uh, you do need to know a little bit about anatomy and you need to know some terms that are kind of a little more specialized. But yeah, I guess the, the, the, the easiest answer to that question is there's at least 70 mushrooms that are very distinctive. Mm-hmm. Many of those mushrooms are edible. Mm-hmm. And so what I focus on in my hikes, um, is. The, the distinctive mushrooms. Um, the mushrooms that you can after encountering a few times, you can say that is a chantrell, that is a hedgehog mushroom. I mean, a perfect example is a hedgehog, hedgehog mushroom, orange mushroom Instead of gills, it has these little like. Teeth, like projections, like little icicles hanging down under the cap. And like if you have that mushroom and it's orange and it has a cap that's a hedgehog and it's edible and mm-hmm. So, so I really try to emphasize the ones that people can. After a few times say, that's definitely a chare because when I peel it back, it's, got white flesh, it peels like string cheese. It's got de current gills, that fork. There's a lot at a lot at stake. When, deciding to eat a, edible mushroom. Yeah. But it's not as complex or hard to figure out as, people imagine. Mm-hmm. Just focusing on those first few mushrooms. Right. So a good starting point is to. Not start with ones that are hard to tell the difference between. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that makes sense. And if you're interested, follow your interest and, get more specialized. And that's, what happened with me. I learned a few edible mushrooms and, then you're out there looking for them and you see this one, you're like, oh, this is interesting. What is this? You know? Yeah. And, soon enough I've probably eaten 30 different species. Some of them I wouldn't eat again. And, and there's plenty of them that are edible that I just don't eat because a. I find them in a season when there's like tremendous amount of really great, uh, what mushroom hunters called choice mushrooms. Uh, choice mushrooms are both delicious and really safe. Hmm. Um, there are some mushrooms that are safe for me, but not safe for you. Hmm. Um, so start really small every time you try it. An edible mushroom. Um, don't eat a ton of 'em, just try a few. Mm-hmm. And, uh. And see how you feel and then, uh, because that, that definitely comes up where people, oh, I've been mushroom poison, but you're not, it's just your body isn't able to handle it or you didn't cook it well enough. Right. And I'm sure going back to what you were saying earlier about cooking them and, and all that, there's like a difference between something being poisonous and something. That like really upset your digestive system that might not somebody else's. Absolutely. Yeah. Cool. Okay. This is all really fascinating. So, um. River. What about like ethics and foraging? So again, we're talking about if people are gonna actually pick them. Like where, how do you know if you're on a hiking trail, how do you know if it's okay to forage mushrooms? And is this like a legal issue or a moral issue? Like tell us your. Opinion about that? First off, wherever you're foraging, you should, you know, you should check the local regulations. I primarily forage here in Moran State Park, and they have, the ability to forage in the park. They've got some strange, restrictions. I, if I recall correctly, it's something like two buckets full or something, which it's like kind of, well, I can get big, really big buckets, one of the rules for, , Moran State Park is to stay on the trail. , I definitely included in the mushroom heights where it's we're gonna stay on the trail. I think one thing you said there, river is important, it's relative to where you typically do it. Yes. In Marran State Park, which is like a very specific location. Yeah. If someone was gonna do this in like the. , Mount Baker Sno call me National Forest or the Olympic National Forest like that. Maybe they would go off trail. 'cause it's a different environment with different regulations. Absolutely. So I think that makes sense. So yeah, I think that's a good point to like find out what the rules are. What about beyond that? Beyond just like, okay, here on this Forest Service lamb, there's no specific regulations. What are, what are some moral or ethical things hikers should keep in mind, if any? I think that, uh, again, because you're not destroying the organism, you are like picking an apple off of a tree and while you carry those mushrooms, the spores are being dispersed all over the place. I, I have no qualms at all with harvesting mushrooms. I personally never take more than. A half of any patch I find, and I cover so much ground that I tend to pluck one from a patch, and then I'll move on and pluck a few more. So yeah, but that's also, that's also my personal ethos. There's plenty who are gonna say you, it doesn't matter. I don't ever intend to sell them., I do like to share them with friends and family. And you can pres preserve them, but it gets to a certain point where like you can only use so many of them. And on a good year, you can find a tremendous amount. I like to leave some so that those who come behind me can experience them and see them, and whether they harvest them or just appreciate them, I just think that it's important to, to leave some for others. But that's my personal ethos and I wouldn't impose that on anyone else. Following the regulations of where you're. Foraging and, doing what you think is right. Not digging up the areas. There's some mushrooms that you find under leaves and that, you know, raking and stuff, that's a no-no. What are, just in setting aside whether or not they're edible or you're going to pick them mm-hmm. What are. A few of the most common fungi or mushrooms that hikers will see on trails in, and I know you're an expert on Orcas Island, but of course many of those mushrooms are gonna be seen other places in Washington. What are they and when is the best time of year to see them? I know we've talked about fall, but like when we say fall, do we mean. September, or do we mean December or somewhere in between? Because I feel like in, in Western Washington, we kind of consider everything between September and December fall, , That's also a great question,, and, and to answer the most common ones that you'll find. There's three genes that are extremely common all throughout Washington, all throughout the Pacific Northwest., And there's Courtin Aria, which has a a Cob cobwebby veil. Remnants. Basically, when the cap breaks away from the stip, it leaves like this cobweb looking thing., And, uh, lac, which is um, is typically identified by breaking it and it will have little. Exude, little kind of latex drops. It'll lactate if you will. And then there's ula, um, which, uh, takes a, many different forms and,. So there's no, like the real specific criteria off the top of my head, about that one. But those are, three genes that you're gonna see, many of, in terms of the edible mushrooms, chantals are very common. And, once you find a patch,, just keep revisiting the patch. Um, hedgehogs are also really common. Edible mushroom, oyster mushrooms, I just found some of those yesterday and took 'em home and breaded them and fried 'em up, and they were just amazing as kind of like fried fish. Yum. The, uh, the oysters have,, very much of a seafood flavor and texture. Um, so like vegan seafood basically? Yes, exactly. Exactly. Those are some big ones. Um, you know, we see Shaggy Mains quite a bit and, but Sha Shaggy, me mains are often on the roadside ti. Mm-hmm. A very distinct mushroom one that can't be confused with others in terms of the season. I, I love that question because, it's easy to kind of generalize and say fall, winter, but I start picking on a good year where there's rain. I will start picking CREs as early as July. Mm. Okay. Yeah. I had no idea you could get in the summer. Yeah. I know with, with some plants or animals, it's like, well, this happens in October. And other times it's like, well, whenever the first frost is, yeah, this thing starts or ends. Yeah., And so you're saying that for mushrooms it's primarily about rainfall. , That and temperature plays into it. Okay. To a, to a degree, but, but rainfall is, is certainly the biggest factor. So if, can I ask something else about that? Sure. So let's say it's a year where the fall rains kind of come earlier, like there's some rain in September. Yeah. Will that prompt them to grow more versus a year where it stays dry until like mid to late October? Absolutely. Does that make a difference? A huge difference. Okay. And some years, and this is something that I don't think everybody thinks about or knows, but some years, I've had years where there's really nothing. I mean mm-hmm. Probably the, the first year that after the pandemic that I did, um. Uh, the mushroom walks. I, I did a series of six or seven of them that year and we primarily found nothing. I mean, wow. We had shelf mushrooms, cos and, , but I had this really amazing dedicated group of people who showed up to every single one of them. They were just amazing people and we just had the time of our live lives, even though we didn't find anything. It could be dramatic. And then some years, like this was a really good year, but. The year before was by far the largest I've ever seen on Orcas Island. I kept racking my brain over why that was. , All the rainfall was good, but I mean, it was just like nothing I've seen before. Hmm. , I started to have a hunch that we had a really big lightning storm. Early in the, uh, late, in the late summer that year. Mm-hmm. And it wasn't long until long after that I, I came across some research that did indicate that, lightning can spur, uh, larger fungi fruiting. Wow. Cool. I mean, lightning storms are well known, like to gardeners as they basically, they. The electrical charge in the soil will raise ni nitrogen availability to, garden plants. So having that knowledge and understanding, I, it wasn't too far of a jump to, I was like, I bet something's happening with the lightning. Plants and fungi are really quite bonkers it's really amazing when you start learning this stuff about in animals too. It's just the natural world is so cool. Yeah. The relationship with between plants and fungi is absolutely extraordinary. Yeah. If you cast your mind back, in the geological time, you know, you, you have to picture a planet that at one point had no soil. , An environment that was so harsh that, um, nothing could live on land. And as life involved in the sea, slowly. Life began on land and, for plants to evolve, the mycelium came first. The mycelium of fungi acted as the roots and Wow, that's so cool. And that relationship has only evolved and became more complex to this day 90% of plants have, michal relationships , there's some sort of fungal interaction that is. That is benefiting the plant. And, that extends out to the wood, wood wide web, which is the, network of mycelium, that connects almost every plant in the forest. Chemical messages are sent in that mycelium net network. Electrical, signals are transmitted and essentially the whole forest is. In a kind of primitive way communicating through those networks., There's mother trees where in these old ancient trees are connected to all their progeny. It has been proven that those mother trees will actually send out,, chemicals, to their progeny that helps them fend off disease or drought. So it's, it's a pretty dynamic relationship. And so is it, is it kind of like when you leave home. And then you have to come back and live with your parents for a little bit, for a little extra support. Yeah, that's I'd The trees are like, here kids, let me, let me buy gas for you this week or something. Yes, exactly. I love it. Oh, that's so cool. The mycelium network also extends the, the plant's ability to gather, water and minerals, dramatically. And they're the reason why we have these dramatic forests here in the Pacific Northwest. It's one of the areas of the highest, fungal diversity in the world. And it shows by these massive, ancient, incredible forests that surround. It's cool. That's amazing. Okay, so River, you were on Orcas Island at Doe Bay Resort. So I do wanna ask you a few questions about some of your favorite hikes, but I think it's possible that there are some people listening who aren't familiar with Doe Bay So before we do that, could you just talk a little bit about what it is? And I know it's not a mushroom focused place, but I know that you do do mushroom walks, things like that. So could you talk a little bit about that as well? If people are like, I wanna go out with River and make sure that I don't poison myself the first time. There's two of my favorite things to talk about, Doe Bay and, mushrooms. Doe Bay is an special place. It's, uh. It's 36, 36 acres here on the east side of orcas. We're at the end of the road at a beautiful island., We do a lot of really cool events. , We were famous for Doe Bay Fest, which was a critically acclaimed music festival that we, that was started, and ran for about 12 years. And, we now do the Imagine Music and Arts Festival, which is a, like a family burning man. That's awesome. Yeah. Nice way to describe it. I like that. Yeah. In the past, we've done a lot of weddings. We have 30 cabins, all kind of different style from, from the. Beautiful, modern, luxurious to very rustic. We only have one beautiful, modern, luxurious cabin, by the way. Some of our cabins, we have like, they're full size houses and we have yurts and domes. We have 30 camp sites. We have a beautiful, amazing waterfront,, looking out across. The Salish Sea towards the other islands. We have the Doe Bay Cafe, which is, really amazing, restaurant that, yes, it puts a lot of intention into the food. The Doe Bay Garden, which serves the Doe Bay Cafe. So we're growing food on site, for the cafe. We have a writer's retreat called Write Doe Bay, and,, we do a lot of yoga retreats and family reunions and, we also have a clothing optional sauna and, soaking tubs. Sweet, fun. Love that. Okay, so. Mushroom walks. How do people do a mushroom walk with you? While many of the hikes are anywhere from a mile and a half to two miles, it's kind of slow going, especially depending on how many mushrooms there are because we,. We just stopping frequently, stopping to talk about things. You just show up and, , it's easy. We just talk a lot. We have fun, we find amazing stuff, so to go on one of your mushroom walks, do you need to be a guest at do, is it like something that you're doing through do Bay or is it something you're doing on your own it is something that I'm doing on my own. . Sign up for the Doe Bay newsletter. You can go to the website and do that. Okay. And, or just check the events calendar for Doe Bay Resort. Got it. Also our social media. Pretty much every, our Facebook and our Instagram, TikTok. I'll be making sure that that gets mentioned. And then I also publish like in advance, uh, the schedule of, the whole season's hike. Cool. And so you don't have to be a guest? No. Don't have to at, to do it? No. Not, no. And how much do they cost? Uh, they're free. Woo. Yeah, they're free. Free mushroom walk. Yeah. Fun. One other question about Doe Bay, um, river, do, do people have to drive to get there or is there another, any kind of shuttle or any other way to get from the ferry to Doe Bay besides driving? We, we no longer. Operate a shuttle. We do have a, package with Kenmore Air where Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Well, they'll bring you here. Um, and that's on the website, so that's another way to get here. Right. So you just fly straight there from Seattle or? Not straight to Doe Bay, they'll land at Rosario. Got it. Okay. Yeah. Cool. And then that's good to know. And then we'll pick you up from Rosario if you do that package. That's part of that package. Yeah. And that's much closer. Yeah, I For listeners who haven't been there, orcas is quite a big island and Doe Bay is basically at the opposite end of the island from where the ferry is. Yes. But Rosario is quite close. Yeah. So it's about 15 minutes. Okay. River, what? It doesn't ha, I'm not asking you to give away all your secrets here, right? Yeah. So you answer this however you want. I would love to know what your favorite hike is. On Orcas Island for any reason. Doesn't have to be for mushrooms. Yeah. Can I give you three? Well, okay. Okay. Um, so I'm such a pushover. People are always like, can I give you an, I'm like, , we're here to help people and give them cool info, so why wouldn't we wanna know three also? That's right. Lay 'em on me. Um, okay. The mainstay orca hike, or, what's the word I'm looking for anyway? The iconic, orca hike is to, um, do the mountain lake loop and it's about a four mile hike around Mountain Lake and, , the backside of Mountain Lake just has massive old growth forest and it's an amazing place to forage mushrooms. So that would be number one,, number. Two for me would be Turtleback South Trail. So the Turtleback South Trail, I firmly believe if you go up there at sunset, you are going to see. Sunset and probably the best place in the world to see one, just so dramatic looking down on the islands, looking towards San Juan Islands and islands are all really tight together there and you get almost 360. Degree view. So that is just an absolutely amazing hike. Um, that's my favorite hike on Orus by bike. Uh, yes. Yeah. Good, good. We're on the same team. We are. And then the last one is Cold Springs Trail. Upper Cold Springs Trail. It's one that is just really diverse with. Fungus. And it also happens to be flat. It goes by some shallow lakes that are full of wildlife. And, if you're looking for a flat hike on Orcus, that's the place to go., It's just, you're at the top of the mountain and it's just absolutely beautiful. Love it. Wonderful. Okay, river, before I let you go, I'd love to know what your favorite mushroom is. To find in your favorite mushroom to eat? Well, it's a little tricky because the chare, it, just gets such high points for so many reasons, and it's just there. It's beautiful. To see. It's delicious. It's versatile to cook with, and it's just really special and amazing. That said, I find them a lot, so I would say that probably the Harum species, bears head tooth, coral tooth, are probably my favorite to find 'cause they're just absolutely striking to see visually striking and they're so, so delicious. Yum. Okay. I am ready to have a mushroom meal. Yeah. Come on right now. I know. Well, river, thank you so much for coming on and sharing all this wisdom with us today. Thank you so much, Jennie. I appreciate it thank you for listening. You can really help us out by leaving a rating. Or a review wherever you're listening to the pod. I know you hear this with every podcast you listen to, but the reason is it really makes a difference in helping other people find us. And the more people who find us, the more we are able to keep bringing you more episodes and get support like from our wonderful sponsors. So thank you so much for taking a moment to do that, and we'll see you next week.