Today we went out to some of our favorite spots in the Roaring Fork Valley looking for early porcini. July 14th is pretty early to expect to find any Porcinis in the mountains, but, a friend of ours was starting to find them in the Vail Valley. So, what did we do?? We went foraging.

Conventional wisdom won the day: we did not find a single edible mushroom. In fact, we didn’t even seen any mushrooms. In our experience, we find boletes at our spots when lots of other mushrooms are also abundant. Considering that our spots probably enjoyed super hot and sunny weather without any meaningful rain between June 9th and July 9th, it really shouldn’t have been a surprise that we weren’t seeing mushrooms.

One totally cool highlight of the day was seeing a momma and baby moose eating by the side of the road. Moose are a rare sight around these parts.

Despite the crazy dry weather, the high country seemed moist and green and had lots of wildflowers and muddy roads. Since we didn’t find any mushrooms, all we have are moose and flower pics.

Whats next? Apparently the shrooms are a bit ahead in the Vail Valley. We think that spots in the Vail started getting afternoon rain showers five to seven days before our we got a good rain here in our Valley. We will go there in a few days.