Morel Massacre

Morchella, the true morels, is a genus of edible mushrooms closely related to anatomically simpler cup fungi (thanks wikipedia).

That information is about is useful as the spotter information I received from my fellow hikers.. "It looks like a thumb", "It grows near some other plant", "It could be hidden under leaf litter so look under that".

John and Dallas had spotted a potentially favourable habitat for this edible mushroom so sticks in hand we were digging underneath the leaf litter for about half an hour looking for something that I didn't have the faintest idea of what it looked like.
It probably didn't help that the 'favourable area' was the side of a mountain... a big one or that the bugs were out in force and biting.
We gave up on that area but within 10 minutes there was another more favourable one so out came the sticks again.
In the end I gave up and went on hiking and obviously I was the unlucky charm because as soon as I had left they found a batch.

Later that night the morels were lined up on the log at the campsite. The boys weren't too sure what to do with them as they weren't too impressed with the colour and the general consensus was that the snow a few days ago had frosted them.
All thoughts on the matter however were moot as I, water bottles in hand, water collecting on my mind and big foot the culprit managed to wipe out half the morels in one step.

In some way I might have helped morel hunters in the future by spreading the seeds to an easily discoverable spot but I still fill guilty for my part in the Morel Massacre.