A guided walk with Wilder was the perfect experience to help wake up to the world of which I’m a part… When we spend time observing how another human observes, we get to look at our world with new eyes.
Karen, nature walk client
Meet the fascinating and ephemeral world of fungi
Get your knees dirty and your spirit fed
Mushrooms draw us to them for many reasons. They can be gorgeous and otherworldly beings, shockingly delicious morsels, and have been used medicinally for thousands of years. Mushrooms can also be used to create a rainbow of color in dying fiber and animal skins. Not least of all, fungi play critical ecological roles for both sustaining life and recycling death.
On a mushroom excursion with me, you can expect to: learn about the identification characteristics, lookalikes, culinary/dye/medicinal uses and preservation methods of the mushrooms we find, learn how to read the landscape and flora better understand where mushrooms might be, participate in a mushroom structure and ecology lecture, explore the concepts of ethical harvest and land connection, and learn how to use different types of mushroom identification books. If you’re interested, we can dive into how frigging queer nature and especially fungi are, and explore how queerness is a critical, valuable, and life-giving force in the universe. (For more about my relationship/history with mushrooms, see the About Me page.)
Mushroom forays take place at the only legal spots in the area: Salt Point State Park (no permit required), Jackson Demonstrations State Forest ($20 permit required), or on private land you provide.
What to bring:
- Sturdy hiking shoes
- Water
- A packed lunch
- A pocket knife
- A basket or other receptacle to forage into
- A facemask if you’re sick
2 hour private mushroom foraging walk
$175
This is a private walk for one person. We will have a walking lecture on mushroom structure and ecological function. We’ll still have time to go over your interests (identification, cooking, processing, medicinal uses, etc.) but time flies in this package!
3.5 hour private mushroom foraging walk (recommended)
$250
Take a little longer to get to know the land. We’ll have the opportunity to walk a little further and meet new species, as well as participate in a mushroom structure and ecology lecture and (unique to this package) an ID segment where we learn how to key things out in the books.
Additional people per walk beyond the initial participant will be counted at $40/head
Many of my clients prefer to take out small groups instead of coming alone: it makes it more cost effective! For the four-hour experience (which I recommend):
1 person: $250 each
4 people: $92.50 each
8 people: $66.25 each
etc.
As an offering of reparations, sliding scale is offered for BIPOC folks regardless of income. Large group/nonprofit/community service rates can also be negotiated.
It was an incredible adventure, a Saturday afternoon well spent, and I felt safe and comfortable with Wilder leading the way.
Shelley, mushroom foraging client