Resources and Reflections

Emerald Empire Adventures is excited to announce the
1st annual Mushrooms and Mountain Bikes Adventures

at Leonard Lake Reserve for the fall season of 2009, a Winter Weekend Special Adventure

$165/person, all inclusive; food, lodging, guides and transportation from Redwood Valley included.

Saturday and Sunday throughout the season (October -??? depending on the rains)

Mushroom Pickers are TOUGH; we hunt with just a knife and a paintbrush!

The creek crossing very rarely rains out and becomes impassible so, as every mushroom picker knows, the forest can be wet and the trails muddy, be prepared!Email treasures@emeraldempireadventures.com, comment below or call us at 707-367-3299 or book on-line to reserve your spot now. We can accommodate groups of from five to forty and there’s a ten percent discount for groups of ten or more. Check us out on the web at http://www.emeraldempireadventures.com/

We depart Base Camp at 9001 C North State Street in Redwood Valery and after a 1o mile climb up to Leaonard Lake (for those who wish), we’ll take an hour to settle you into your guest house, whichever of the five classic craftsman style, fully equipped units best fits the group. We’ll have a light lunch and dinner will be started after we go out on our first picking expedition into the old growth redwood on pastures of plenty (Mushroom Gods willing), where no one has picked in man a year, if ever.After a long afternoon tramping the hills and picking, we will return to the lake houses with your bounty where our chef will incorporate it into dinner and pair it all with some carefully chosen local vintages for your dining pleasure. It will all be ready after you’ve changed out of those soggy togs, and we can swap stories around the fire after the meal, till the sandman calls you away.You’ll wake up Sunday morning to the smell of coffee and a hearty country style breakfast to warm you up for the Leonard Lake mountain bike loop, 3.5 miles of up and down (see map and profile below), ’round the lake through more untouched picking grounds than you can shake a mushroom brush at. There will be a vehicle for those who’d rather not ride, those 3 and half miles could easily take 6 hours to pick through and the truck makes it easy to pick for your freezer of dehydrator and not have to lug the whole booty bag back to the cabin! A picnic lunch will be served along the way and warming beverages will be provided.At the end of the day, we’ll load up you and your gear in our bus and bring you back to you car, booty and all. The true hard-core cyclists can ride back down that 10 mile hill they climbed on Saturday, and accommodations will be made for those who don’t want to ride at all.

Email treasures@emeraldempireadventures.com, comment below or call us at 707-367-3299 or book on-line to reserve your spot now. We can accommodate groups of from five to forty and there’s a ten percent discount for groups of ten or more.

Redwood Valley to Leonard Lake, showing teh lake loop

OK, there’s a little glitch on the elevation profile, there really is no 800′ cliff in the road, my GPS unit was “improperly oriented” (i.e. upside down) until I corrected the issue there at the top of the cliff. The main point of interest in the profile above is that 3.56 mile set of bumps at the high point. That’s the Lake Loop route that those willing will ride on Sunday. The views are spectacular, the forest is dark deep and ancient, the road is vehicle width but very steep and extra rough in places, and the mushrooms? There’s only one way to find out.

Emerald Empire Adventures will get you there, keep you from getting lost, show you where to pick and what not to pick. We will cook dinner, breakfast and lunch and show you how to pick, cook, eat, and store the mushrooms. You will bring your sense of adventure and clothing suitable for a temperate rain forest in the fall, i.e.; waterproof boots, rain pants and waterproof jacket, at least 3 changes of inner layers. This is wet work, but ask any mushroom picker, well worth it. We do have some of these items and can provide backups or spares for a limited number of people, but best to bring your own. For those who’ve never picked and don’t have their own equipment, fear not. All you need is a collecting “basket” a small knife and a 2″ nylon paing brussh. Tape the paintbrush handle to the knife handle, et voila, you are a mushroom picker. Why the brush? Because the more moss, bracken and soil you leave in the forest, the less you get in your sink. The knife is  for cutting the stalks, much better and cleaner than pulling or tearing.

Yours truly, your guide, has been picking, eating and not dying from wild mushrooms since the age of four. I’ll befuddle you with learned discourse and arcane mushroom lore, and, if you pay attention, not a single poisonous or even bad-tasting sample will go in your basket, and NONE will pass muster at cleaning time. I use the word “basket ” loosely, but in general I’m referring any more or less rigid-sided container with a capacity of at least one gallon and some ventilation (like holes) for collecting specimens (AKA booty). Mushrooms are relatively fragile beings and do not like the way a bag tends to squash and macerate them while being carried about through the brush. And when the proper stars align, its not unusual to bring out 20-50 pounds of chanterelles per person. They are very easily preserved by dehydration, freezing, canning or pickling and are a wonderful flavoring agent for stew, gravy, casseroles, rice etc. etc. Your mushroom questions will be answered, and I’ve got the book for reference. There is an abundance of edible species here, and a few not so edible (with the liver transplant!), and discrimination is the key, but its pretty simple, really, and I’ve successfully taught children as young as 4 how to tell the good from the bad, so even the timid among us can do this.

This is a great opportunity to bring out the kids for an educational and interesting adventure in an old growth redwood forest, one of the very few remaining intact ecosystems abutting Redwood Valley, and just ten miles off Hwy 101.

Email treasures@emeraldempireadventures.com, comment below or call us at 707-367-3299 or book on-line to reserve your spot now. We can accommodate groups of from five to forty and there’s a ten percent discount for groups of ten or more. Special menu arrangements are available for those with restricted diets.

Popularity: 40% [?]

Post a Comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.