SOUTH FORK— Mushroom hunters from across the Valley and beyond gathered in South Fork on Friday and Saturday at the visitor center to head out into the San Juan Mountain Range to try their hand at finding the elusive mushrooms growing in the dark, dense forests. Avid hunters look forward to this time of year for a tasty treat that can only be found in the late summer months during the rainy season in Colorado, and this year proved to be one of the best yet.
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SOUTH FORK— Mushroom hunters from across the Valley and beyond gathered in South Fork on Friday and Saturday at the visitor center to head out into the San Juan Mountain Range to try their hand at finding the elusive mushrooms growing in the dark, dense forests. Avid hunters look forward to this time of year for a tasty treat that can only be found in the late summer months during the rainy season in Colorado, and this year proved to be one of the best yet.
South Fork was hopping this past weekend with people coming to close out their summer vacations right before the formidable start of fall, school and winter. The center was packed with about 25 people per day in the early morning hours just before 8 a.m. to hear a brief presentation from the Marvelous Mushroom Man Roger Dawson. Dawson took a moment to talk to the groups about specific characteristics of the mushrooms they would be hunting and where to find the fungi in the terrain around Park Creek, Willow Park and Del Norte Peak areas.
Those that ventured out throughout the two days ended up bringing home not bags or handfuls as in previous years, but bushels and baskets filled to the brim with delectable mushrooms of all sorts. The high amount of precipitation over the course of the last month and a half combined with cooler temperatures in the higher elevations resulted in a very bountiful year for mushroom hunters.