Here’s how our Spring Morel hunting in Washington State went.
First, we researched 2021 burn areas at the 4,000-foot level. Washington’s largest burn (in September 2021) was the Schneider Springs fire. This covered a large portion of forest (almost 110,000 acres) about 15 miles east of Mt. Rainier.
In May I made a preliminary (research) foray out to the area. I talked with a lot of locals and found some who were collecting nice-looking morels. I did a little hunting, but mostly in areas easily accessible to the public which were already picked over. On this trip I didn’t really have time to get into the back-country.
Over the next 2 months I made three more forays into the back country in the Schneider Springs burn area. I found a nice rustic campground that was accessible to my Class C RV on forest service roads, at about the 4,000-5,000 foot elevation level. At that point the nights were still cool and we had occasional rain. My first time out, during 2 hours of hunting I found more than 50 nice fire morels in the burn area.
Our second time out we spent about 5 or 6 hours hunting and found more than 200 morels, ranging in size from the size of your fist downward. Expecting morels, and on a trip to the East Coast, we brought a deydrator with us. We ate as much as we could (yumm!) and dehydrated the rest. (Morels dehydrate and rehydrate wonderfully.)
On the way back from our East Coast trip, several weeks later, we stopped in the area again. The mushrooms were thinner (by this time it was warmer and drier) but we still found more than 20 in about an hour of hunting.
So all told we collected nearly 300 fire morels from this area during May – July.
I plan to repeat this strategy next year! So stay tuned.
Now here is a link to a little photo slideshow video I did of our spring forays: https://www.facebook.com/ShortLawrence/videos/603483147835859
Mushroom Obsession 
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