Friday, 25 Nov 2016
When I have several free days, or even two for that matter, I alternate long (more or less) hikes with weed removal. Today was for hiking, El Corte de Madera open space preserve. I haven’t been here since August. I did the usual perimeter trail hike, only 15 miles but 3950 vertical feet, very close to the 4k vertical feet that would make it an official killer hike.
A cool, nice day. I started at 7 and had the world to myself for three and a half hours. At three hours, I was all the way down, as far down as it goes in this preserve, at the creek bridge, enjoying the first calorie break of the day.
Finally I began to see mountain bikies, though not a lot. I was all the way back up to Skyline before I saw the day’s first hikers.
If I saw only a few people, wheeled or otherwise, it was more than made up by the number and variety of fungi.
This new Olympus Stylus camera has a close-up mode in which it shoots a burst at differing focal lengths and then combines the images. Above, the single-shot close-up of the fungus; below, the merged image. I am impressed!
This almost looks like stalactites!
And many hours later, some interesting mushrooms inside the burnt-out interior of a redwood.
More fungi inside the burned cavern.
I wouldn’t upturn a mushroom myself, but someone else had turned this one over, so I got up close for a look at its gills.
This and the two following photos are from a vertical embankment.
For some reason, this strikes me as a bit obscene. No idea why.
A jelly fungus. Without the multi-shot composite close-up the branch is blurred, and the redwood frond in the background it just a stripe of color.
It really is a day for the fungi to come out!
I walked the last quarter mile to Skeggs Pt parking with a couple of mountain bikies who had had enough hard work for the day. From there, it was a fairly flat couple of miles for me back to the parking lot. On the way I talked with three groups about scenery and hikes in the preserve. It was mid-afternoon, and it only occurred to me later that I should also have called to their attention the fact that sunset today was at 4:52. I hope everything worked out well for them.
Dave's Blog 
June 25, 2017 at 10:54 pm |
Hi,
Found your blog. You obviously know the mid pen area and fungi so maybe you can help me. I am a scientist at Michigan State. I study poisonous mushroom toxins – which are made by Amanita and Galerina. A couple of years ago I saw a sign SOMEWHERE along the trails near Skyline Blvd. All I remember is north of route 9, south of 92. The sign said “be careful about poisonous mushrooms”. What was intriguing was it warned not just about Amanita phalloides, which everyone knows, but also Galerina, an obscure little brown mushroom but equally deadly. I am especially “fond” of Galerina (scientifically), so if you know this sign can you please tell me where it is or send me a picture of it??
Thanks, Jonathan Walton walton@msu.edu
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