The Hiking Thread

[Vrede too]

I didn't mean it as snark and didn't think you were going blind without a plan. I just thought it was a funny request for such a huge area.

Besides what I've written about above and at the link, and skipping the obvious like the amazing national parks:
A show at Red Rocks amphitheater in CO.
Long's Peak in CO.
Get hot springs books for the Cascade Range and Northern Rockies.
Craters of the Moon, ID.
Sawtooth Range, ID.
Mount St. Helens, WA - way cool!
Butte, MT. Not natural, but no place quite like it.
Hwy 12 in ID going to MT.
Rocky Mountain Front, MT.
Missoula, MT - "Berkeley North". Bike into the Rattlesnake Wilderness, one of the few (only?) Wilderness Areas with a bike corridor.
Mission Mountains, MT.

[JTA]

O Really be sure to check out this place:

https://www.yelp.com/biz/horseshoe-bar- ... r-interior

Cuz I'm definitely gonna.

[JTA]

https://www.drbronner.com/

The best all purpose soap money can buy.

[Seth Milner]

New Wonder of China

nope . . .

[JTA]

I haven't been to any of those places, but next summer Lady O and I are taking the winter residence out to Washington. We're going by Denver and Salt Lake on the way out, and Montana, South Dakota, on the way back. If you find something we ought to see, suggestions welcome. One thing I'm not going to miss is the Hiawatha bike trail... http://www.ridethehiawatha.com/the-trail

Wow! What a place!!!!

I had a blast. Visited South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa (for like ten minutes), and stayed a night in Western MN.

By far the best trip I've taken. Not too many tourists, incredibly beautiful scenery, and the oh man the sky!

[Seth Milner]

[JTA]

Vrede, you ever mess around with trying to munch on edible wild plants when out on your hiking excursions?

[billy.pilgrim]

Vrede, you ever mess around with trying to munch on edible wild plants when out on your hiking excursions?

I like poke salad. Not so much a wild caught veggie, more like a residential weed.


and sassafras tea

and psilocybin mushrooms

and blackberries

and the grass my grandfather called sweet grass. he would chew on a small stalk when he walked the farm

[JTA]

psilocybin mushrooms

Asking for scientific purposes only for a friend, but exactly how prevalent are these in the wild, and how easy are they to distinguish between poisonous cousins, and where can one typically find these?

[billy.pilgrim]

psilocybin mushrooms

Asking for scientific purposes only for a friend, but exactly how prevalent are these in the wild, and how easy are they to distinguish between poisonous cousins, and where can one typically find these?

much harder to find due to the fungicides used in cow feed these days. We used to pick them by the bushel after heavy summer rains. this summer was the first time I have looked in about 10 years. I found a very few, but they were there.

there are many types, but the only one I know of that grows in the US grows in the SE. This mushroom spores do their thing only in a cow's stomach and the mycelium - the spidery looking plant that produces the mushroom grows the cow's shit. 2 or 3 days after a heavy summer rain the shrooms buttons start popping out of the older cow pies. Size can vary from dime size to half dollar for the buttons and quarter to 4 or 5 inched across for the fully opened mushroom due to rain amount and the age of the mycelium.

Wiki indicates more varieties than my 1970 research, but the 2nd picture in wiki is pretty similar to the type we have in the SE. The center can be gold to almost brown and lightening to a pale tan or almost white at the edges. The gills and spores are very dark purple and look black.

The 2 primary identifying keys are:
1) They grow in cow shit and
2) when broken or crushed the area immediately turns a dark purple.

Early on we didn’t know that they also contain strychnine and we would often get moderate stomach cramps. After that we started drinking lots of liquids (beer) to flush out the strychnine and never had cramps after.

We ate a bunch of them (Buddy ate over a hundred one time) and I don’t know of anyone who got sick, but Vrede may offer different advice.

Great high and lasts about 4 hours.

[Mr.B]

...

[O Really]

Chanterelles are great. No magical effects, but you don't have to fish them out of cow shit.

[billy.pilgrim]

Vrede, you ever mess around with trying to munch on edible wild plants when out on your hiking excursions?

I like poke salad. Not so much a wild caught veggie, more like a residential weed.

and sassafras tea

and psilocybin mushrooms

and blackberries

and the grass my grandfather called sweet grass. he would chew on a small stalk when he walked the farm

and "creesy" greens, and ramps.

What is a ramp

[Vrede too]

Vrede, you ever mess around with trying to munch on edible wild plants when out on your hiking excursions?

No, never had the patience to get confident with them.

[JTA]

What kind of hippy are you?

[Vrede too]

I just got asked that when I skipped a disaster med team meeting that was featuring acupuncture. My response: "I'm an activist hippie, not a woo-woo one." Not that I'm dissing either wild edibles or alternative med, I just never got into them.

Allium tricoccum (commonly known as ramp, ramps, spring onion, ramson, wild leek, wood leek, and wild garlic) is a North American species of wild onion widespread across eastern Canada and the eastern United States. Many of these English names are used for other Allium species, particularly Allium ursinum.

Once you've learned how to ID psilocybin mushrooms they're pretty hard to mistake for something dangerous. It's been awhile for me, I don't have anything to add to billy.pilgrim's post. There are good guidebooks out there, you just follow the steps to key out any mushroom. They're very prevalent in the Pacific Northwest, too. We even once found some growing in horseshit while hiking in the Black Hills. It was a good day.

[billy.pilgrim]

Vrede, you ever mess around with trying to munch on edible wild plants when out on your hiking excursions?

I like poke salad. Not so much a wild caught veggie, more like a residential weed.

and sassafras teain

and psilocybin mushrooms

and blackberries

and the grass my grandfather called sweet grass. he would chew on a small stalk when he walked the farm

and "creesy" greens, and ramps.

What is a ramp

Never heard the term but have eaten them. Thanks Vrede

I had forgotten the paw paw - they are great, sort of tastes like a mango with the texture of a banana. They grew all in the woods at our middle Tennessee farm. They were only ripe for a few days so you had to be more diligent than the opossums.


I almost forgot the local stuff. Sabal palms, also know as jelly palms make these huge stalks of berries. Huge seed with thin layer of citrus tasting meat. Damn squirrels. I would gather them as they fell. Then the squirrels started eating the ripe ones off the stalk. So last year I cut the stalks when they first started getting ripe and hung them in the garage. It worked great - lots of fresh fruit and jelly. Damn squirrels, this year they ate everything before it even started to ripen. I hope it upset their fucking little stomachs.

The sabal palm hearts are good, but like us, they only have one so opportunities are rare. I also eat the hearts of the palmetto. They grow everywhere you don't want them. Hearts are okay, but small and probably More difficult to prepare than they are worth.


We kids ate the stuff inside locust and sweet gum tree seed pods and the goo inside may pops is okay.


Damn squirrels, we think they're stupid, but that ain't it, at anybone time they are constantly planning and acting out hundreds of battle plans to get stuff that ain't theirs. Their plans to capture cars and take out the power grid have not advanced past the suscide phase, but we should be careful around these creatures.
Too many bones too.

[Vrede too]

Squirrels are tasty wild edibles, too.

[billy.pilgrim]

Squirrels are tasty wild edibles, too.

Too many bones. And besides you can put a bushy tail on a rat but it is still a rat

[JTA]

Damn squirrels, we think they're stupid, but that ain't it, at anybone time they are constantly planning and acting out hundreds of battle plans to get stuff that ain't theirs. Their plans to capture cars and take out the power grid have not advanced past the suscide phase, but we should be careful around these creatures.
Too many bones too.