October 6, 2007, Wildwood, Multnomah County, OR: Marvin is taking a class in mushroom identification and today featured a field trip to Wildwood Recreation Site, off highway 26, near the community Welches. He invited me to join the group and with permission of the instructor I tagged along.
Marvin and I were the first to arrive at Wildwood so we registered (fee area) and then started our saunter. We crossed the Salmon river on a wooden bridge. We discovered that the wooden planks are very slippery when wet. Even though I wear hiking boots with tractor tread soles I had to be careful with my balance.
Mushrooms were plentiful and we enjoyed the solitude of the woods. Parts of the trail bridge over the swamp so we had opportunity to observe marsh habitat without getting wet and muddy.
As we completed one of the loop trails we met the rest of his class. We were able to point out some of the mushrooms we had found and they found a few more that we had missed. Marvin thought perhaps the mushrooms were growing very fast and those had popped up since we had passed.
At lunch time everyone met back at the parking lot where the instructor called it a successful day.
A mushroom festival was in progress nearby so we decided to give it a look. Parking was difficult to find but eventually someone left and we grabbed their empty spot.
The festival was a disappointment… one small table of mushrooms and about twenty tables for vendors of various craft objects. We enjoyed a cup of coffee and window shopped the crafts.
byLarry
