Hola La Niña!

A nice shot of Josh Wozniak holding a huge chantrelle. Josh was nice enough to let me tag along on a mushroom hunt on the east side of the Olympic Peninsula. It turned out to be a pretty soggy but productive mushroom expedition. The key to our late-season success: staying at a low elevation, concentrating our efforts in later successional forest ecosystems, and getting off the trail.
Me with my first chantrelle of the day. As you can see, I have a nose for the big ones...

Josh Wozniak with another killer trelle.
How many chantrelles can you find in this picture?
Does this shot look familiar yet?
Another chantrelle with a nice black backdrop.
Most of the chantrelles we found barely made it out of the moss/duff layer.
Josh going in for the grab.
A nice lineup in an especially productive area.

As if this place weren't spooky enough, Josh happened to see this makeshift grave site just off the trail. I thought the bottle of pills added a nice touch. I hope this is a holloween joke...

The next bunch of photos are of other mushrooms that were left unpicked.
This was the only bolete that we found, which was unfortunately not one of the better eating bolete species. Notice the spongy underside characteristic of boletes.

Conk!
Shaggy mane! This mushroom turns into black ink from the edge inward as it matures. These guys are good eating but you need to eat them the day you pick 'em.
The long, drizzly walk back to the car.
Josh surveying our mushrooming bounty. Notice the lobster mushrooms on the far right (and being cooked below).

A nice panoramic view of our destination (Lake Valhalla) and beach where we lunched.

The crew (Mitch, Morgan, Amy , Elise , and Sangeun) stoked up for Lake Valhalla, which is located off Highway 2 on the Pacific Crest Trail.

Wading through grass in the morning = wet pants and unhappy Germanics students...

There's actually a black bear in the distance, if you can believe it.
This is a fly amanita, one of the better mushroom pictures of the hike. This guy is apparently psychedelic in small quantities, deadly in large quantities (i.e., one mushroom).
Amy with homemade cookies.
Wild blue berries.