EISPIRATEN

Alternate report: Dima and I were trying to figure out how allergic to poison oak we are, so we decided to go on this fine hike up the river. The first few miles are super pretty and we saw some poison oak, but not enough, so we pressed onwards, going up an obscure canyon where we heard tall tales o...

Cool! hope to say hi in person once the in person meetings resume

Yeah, I have been for a few years now. You too? I zoomed in for that meeting; he's a pretty good speaker! I lived in Seattle for a couple years and was part of PSMS while up there too.

Exactly... for the novice mycophiles, puffballs when immature are solid white when bisected. If there appears to be primitive gill/cap/stem structures that suggests it is actually an "egg" of a Amanita sp. which has potent liver toxins and is deadly. If it is solid white, without such stru...

Hey Jerry, I made it back out in that direction on a bike ride the other day and saw that the state park entrances to the area, such as from mugu are indeed closed. But if you go to camp danielson from the mishe mokwa trailhead it's all legal, and that probably explains why we barely saw anyone on t...

Thanks! I'll have to check it out soon

That second one is probably a puffball. I've seen them around lately, and can be edible depending on how old it is. Nice finds!

Are you riding a road bike? Yeah sounds like the guy. yeah, I was sticking to the pavement on my cross bike, but there seems to be plenty of fireroads and trails coming off GMR that caught my attention: lLooking out east from the high point just outside of Mt Baldy town, I spied a path going east a...

A lot of the lesser climbed rock I've run into in the santa monicas and angeles forest is pretty dang chossy. After doing one of the backcountry crags near circle x and removing a hand hold on lead, I'm a little nervous... Then again, if it's a decent looking crack, might be worth bringing the cams ...

very nice. You found a couple morels, or maybe you know that? They're pretty delish and highly sought after. Around what elevation and face was this?

Looks allowed right now in Los Padres NF

I did GMR to mount baldy town this last Sunday... I think the same day. On the ride up maybe 2/3 of the way encountered a rattle snake in the middle of the road, doing that spooky rattle head shaking thing. After staring at this spectacle for a few minutes a chubby dude on his road bike came down 'r...

Thanks for the info... I'm going to look up those up.

The ventura county side of things out there is open on weekdays, including the backbone. They did close off the parking lots at the trailheads, but you can still legally park on the side of the road.

That mushroom looks like Lactarius sp. and probably not particularly worthy of taking home. Neat looking area.. particularly that (climbing??) wall

Dima, I think that is the south face of Tri Peaks or something in that general direction. Looks tantalizing to climb...

Nice adventure! I'm in for that

Was eyeballing the openings/closures for trails and saw the ventura county side of the santa monicas is open during the week, so decided to see what what I could find out there. Settled on hiking to camp danielson, starting out at the sandstone peak trailhead near circle X ranch. Looked like a promi...

Yes, even some mushroom foragers don't realize we get chanterelles in the santa monica mountains! I've found a few patches, and I'm sure there are many more. But watch out Girl Hiker, those aren't chanterelles you found but rather a coprinoid mushroom (one of the "inky caps"). You could ke...

I don't have either--I'm a newbie to the backcountry stuff

Howdy all, I have snowboarded a lot, but never backcountry. Would be interested in doing some easier stuff in the local areas, but would probably need to snow shoe it up since I don't have a split board. Anyway, I'm happy to tag along if you'll have me...

Looks amazing!

I've been to sespe hotsprings 3 times now and never heard cats. There ARE however biting flies that produce many an itch about 2 days later

Would be great to test everyone, but there aren't enough tests. You know since the guy in charge rejected the WHO's....

2-3 probably not cortanarius since the gills are deliquesing. That's more coprinoid mushrooms

Supposedly there are some cave paintings around ant camp, but we did not investigate. I would strongly recommend not doing this hike in shorts... very overgrown in parts. The campsites along alder creek are great, but it was hard not to push on to sespe hot springs. Those rocks and the lichen by cow...

There's a lot of mycophobia in our culture, and abroad too in the UK. True, there are several deadly mushrooms, and eating them will kill you and/or your liver, but the majority will only give you a transient gastritis. This is not to say you should eat anything you find that you are not fully confi...

These are from the santa monicas, in oak woodland, in canyons. I was honestly pretty surprised to find the chanterelles, but after finding the first batch I started looking around more and found them growing in several other spots... score! I thought for sure that month long lapse without rain was g...

Wow, so cool to get snow, cactus, and forest on one hike!

I don't mean to instigate anything here... I believe the closure happened before the covid pandemic, so it's not in regards to maintaining social distancing. The stay at home order is somewhat a misnomer as it says people can leave their homes for exercise, and if I'm not mistaken explicitly mention...

Howdy all, I live nearby the santa monicas so tend to go there fairly often. It being mushroom season with all this rain, I've had some luck finding edibles out there, like chanterelles and A. velosa. Any non-foragers out there spotting mushrooms on their hikes? I'd be particularly interested in any...