Glacier Institute Mushroom Classes

Get to know Glacier National Park and increase your enjoyment of this unique environment, the Crown of the Continent ecosystem, with an in-depth, field based, outdoor education course designed with you in mind . For more than 25 years, The Glacier Institute has partnered with Glacier National Park and Flathead National Forest in offering exciting, outdoor educational courses to people of all ages. Course topics range from geology to grizzlies, wildflowers to wilderness skills, river ecology to railroad history. Take a look at some of our most popular one day summer courses. Two day immersion courses for adults, youth science adventure camps, and a complete listing of all of our courses are available online (www.glacierinstitute.org) or request a catalog by telephone (406-755-1211). We also have custom programs available for a personal experience.

For over 12 years now the Glacier Institute Big Creek Outdoor Education Center has been the site of a spring and fall mushroom study class. With just 2 cancellations over this period, due to dry conditions usually, the collection information represents a significant body of knowledge about the fungi of this remarkable place. Located just across the North Fork of the Flathead River from Glacier National Park, These classes collected mushrooms for several seasons before and several years after the forest burned in 2001. (Adjacent areas also burned in 2003).

    Here we see the class out on foray, and examining some of the fungi collected, displayed on the hood of the GI van. The classes usually collect in a variety of ecotypes, ranging from grassy pastures to cottonwood riparian areas to mixed hardwood and conifers, to conifer stands, both green and burned, to melting snowbanks and alpine areas all in a single weekend. We go where the fungi show. All hikes are easy to moderate, but some folks like to range widely.  Usually within an hour or so people have trouble fitting all their bags back in the van, they have so many different mushrooms.

    Larry and Jack examine the mushroom display table on the porch of the classroom building. Species lists of this and other mushroom hunts can be found in the archives. We have found from as few as 60 species to as many as 109 in a single weekend. (My lowest species count, ever, was at Crested Butte during the drought year. We still got 28 species.) Edible species found include: Laetiporus coniferatus (aka L. sulphureous) Suillus of several flavors, Boletus edulis, Leccinum aurantiacum L. scabrum, and L. insigne, Hydnum repandum, Chanterelles, Morels in great abundance, Marasmius the Fairy Ring, Oyster mushrooms, Lobster mushrooms, Honey mushrooms, tree ears, fried chicken mushroom (Lyophyllum decastes), Clitocybe dilitata (Lyophyllum connatum), Coral mushrooms Ramaria rasilispora, Hericium corralloides, Lentinus lepidius, and some Geopora cooperi, and pogies (Rhizopogon sp) and many more even more obscure ones.

The Glacier Institute class IN ACTION!  In between forays out into the surrounding National Forest, We watch slides of mushrooms and learn how to describe and talk about their features. After collecting, we sit around and sip coffee and use mushroom ID books (yours or the Institute has some spares) to key out, or identify, the mushrooms we have found. It can be surprising what you learn.

    After identification the scene shifts to the kitchen as dinner and mushroom tasting time draws near. Some Suillus cavipes are about to meet some red wine. Taste tests usually include a few famous edibles, such as chanterelles or morels or oysters, along with some of the more exotic species we collect. Happy surprises include Hypholoma capnoides, Armillaria mellea, and sometimes truffles.

Well, as you can see from the expressions on people's faces, taste tests are fun. and educational. and funny. and curious. and tasty. or not. and exciting. and nobody has ever gotten sick or died. really.

Main Page