Next hike from Van Anda

The next hike will be on Saturday, 10th November.

This week we will meet at 10:00am in the parking lot at the Canadian Legion in Van Anda

Last week we had another rainy day for our hike and while the rain was never very heavy it did pretty well keep up the whole time we were hiking. We drove to the start of the Mt. Pocahontas trail a short distance down the Pocahontas Bay Road.  This year has been a poor one so far for mushrooms and it was odd to be hiking along this forested route with hardly a single fungus to be seen anywhere, and yet water has been falling from the sky for several weeks and one would think the underground parts of the fungi, the mycelium, would be well watered by now.  We climbed steadily higher along the winding road, past the side trail to the peak where the fire lookout hut used to be and only then began to spot the odd golden yellow fungus pushing through the mossy forest floor.  This is the choice Chanterelle of which there are a number of varieties and species but Cantharellus cibarius seems to be the most common one. We finally reached the lunch spot, a grassy bluff overlooking Malaspina Strait which was to our surprise visible even with mist and rain cloud all around and above us.

JD.

  

  Golden chanterelles on the mossy forest floor on Mt. Pocahontas.