Morel Season

Picking his way across burned patches of hillside above Sucker Creek Road, Joe Lafountaine kept an eye out for the small gnarled mushroom that proliferate in recently burned areas. He was having a good day.

"Oh, yeah, really good picking," he said. "Plenty to keep the family in mushrooms over the winter."

Lafountaine, of East Helena, makes the trip up to Lincoln every year and said he spends quite a bit of time here at a cabin, but his trip last weekend with his sons was aimed at foraging for morels.

Unlike large, pale oyster mushrooms growing on stumps, or bright white shaggymanes, morels are well camouflaged and can be challenging to spot. Crossing the sometimes-slippery, soot-covered slope, Lafountaine pointed out the morels, some growing under logs or uncurling in burned out root holes, others just popping straight up like tiny Christmas trees out of the scorched duff on the forest floor. Despite describing himself as half blind, he could spot the small fungi with surprising ease.

Once you see one morel, look around and you'll probably see more, Lafountaine advised, saying that they tend to follow lines, almost like veins of gold. In practice, with one morel spotted, more of the mushrooms became obvious almost as if by magic, making it easy to see why the hunt for them can be addicting.

"We've just been here twice and got a bucketful each time," Lafountaine said. "I think we're done now. We'll dry those out and it'll be enough for all winter."

Lafountaine and his sons were taking advantage of personal use permits to gather the mushrooms they needed. Since morels are considered a "forest product," harvesting them requires some sort of permit, and on the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest, that means one of two options.

"On this forest, we only have incidental use and personal use, because we don't have any commercial spots here," said Moe Geary, the range and weed technician at the Lincoln Ranger District.

Incidental use technically doesn't require a written permit. It's designed for folks who want to go out for a day or two and just gather a few morels. It allows a person to harvest up to one gallon per day, with a cap of five gallons for the season.

Anyone wanting more than that has to bump up to the personal use permit, which costs a dollar per gallon, with a minimum of 20 gallons. On the Helena-Lewis and Clark Forest, anything above 20 gallons is charged in $5 increments up to a maximum of 300 gallons for the season. Regardless, pickers are only allowed to gather up to five gallons per day.

Although the USFS Northern Region guidelines offer a free personal use permit of up to 20 gallons per season, that isn't an option for the HLCNF.

Permits for commercial morel picking are available, but there are only a few areas around the state where it's allowed, with the nearest being on the western edge of the Rice Ridge Fire, north of Seeley Lake.

Incidental and personal use come with requirement that ensures the mushrooms aren't for commercial use. .

"If you cut them lengthwise, it shows its personal use," Geary said. "We encourage people to cut them above the stem so they can reproduce. It's easy to pull them by the stem, but if they cut them, they can reproduce and we can have more mushrooms; they'll come back."

Cutting them lengthwise can also help ensure no one winds up with a poisonous "false morel," which has a solid stem extending into the cap, as opposed to being completely hollow like true morels.

With nearly 50,000 acres burned on the Lincoln Ranger District, the roads and scorched areas are likely to get a bit crowded in the coming weeks, as more people come to the area to search out the highly prized mushrooms.

"The Friday before Memorial Day weekend, I had 70 people in here. I would consider it a very busy day," said Geary, who has been selling the permits for the district. "Almost everybody who came in at least asked questions about mushrooms, and we've sold quite a few mushroom permits."

If you plan to head out, stop by the Lincoln Ranger district office for more information and guidelines, or for a permit and keep in mind a few safety precautions.

First, watch for falling snags. Even outside burned areas, beetle-killed snags can present a danger.

Also be mindful of stump holes in burned areas. Although the holes can be hazardous if yo step in one, remember that the soil above burned out root channels can also collapse

And of course, don't forget bears.

"We've had some bears roaming around eating the same mushrooms people are picking, so heads up, bear aware," Lincoln Ranger District Resource Manager Josh Lattin said. "Make a noise, make sure you have bear spray with you, or some way of deterring bear. We haven't had any issues yet, it's just a heads-up thing."