Colorado Mushrooms: Collecting, Preparing and Eating

In August 2014 we had a family reunion at a cabin about 18 miles east of Buena Vista, Colorado and one of the activities we enjoyed doing together was looking for mushrooms, edible and inedible, but particularly the edible ones. We searched: (a) around the cabin near Trout Creek Pass; (b) along the trail to Mount Yale, about 11 miles west of Buena Vista, where we'd seen mushrooms previously during a hike; and (c) along the trail to Mount Shavano, about 30 miles southwest of Buena Vista, another place we'd seen mushrooms while hiking. 

Hiking in on the Mt. Yale trail. It was mostly pine trees.

Bug standing by lots of mushrooms.

Squirrel and Andrew bringing some mushrooms. 

Log bridges over streams.

Beautiful sky above the trees. 

Mostly aspens along the Mt. Shavano Trail. 

We found lots of mushrooms of many different types, mostly inedible, but some edible, which we collected to cook and eat. 

King bolete mushrooms in the ground. They are edible, although many of them were not in the right condition to eat. 

A king bolete mushroom in the ground near Squirrel's foot. It was too old and waterlogged to eat. 

A king bolete held by Andrew.

Andrew holds hawks eye mushrooms, another mushroom that is edible. 

The rest of the mushrooms in this section are indedible. 

After we'd gathered as many king bolete and hawks wing mushrooms as we could find, we took them back to the cabin and Andrew meticulously cleaned each one with a brush, getting off dirt and other substances, then he sliced them. 

Hawks wing and king bolete mushrooms laid out and ready to clean. 

King boletes ready to clean. 

Cleaned hawks wings being sliced. 

Cleaned king bolete being sliced.

Bug looks at the sliced king boletes. 

Andrew sautéed some of the mushrooms and we had those as toppers on our grilled buffalo ribeye steaks. 

Sautéed king bolete mushrooms. 

Sautéed hawkswing mushrooms. 

Sautéed hawkswing mushrooms on buffalo ribeye. 

Andrew then made mushroom soup. He boiled some of the mushrooms for a few hours, then strained the broth and added more ingredients, like carrots, kale, a bit of cream, spices and a sprinkling of shaved Manchego cheese. 

Finally, Andrew dried the leftover mushrooms for future use. 

It was very fun for all of us to participate in the collection of the mushrooms and then have the opportunity to see them prepared, cooked and eat them.