Mushroom foraging in Colorado is more popular than ever, but experts say climate change could spoil the fungi
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NEDERLAND, Colo. — The foragers weren’t ready to give up yet.
After an hour of scouring forests about 20 miles outside of Nederland at the height of summer in the Rockies, seven mushroom scavengers still had not come across any mushrooms. Edible leaves and berries were plentiful, but mushrooms were nowhere to be found.
After more than an hour, Daniel Gray hit the jackpot. About five feet from where the explorers trudged through muddy, dense forest, Gray’s eyes landed on a Hydnum repandum – colloquially known as the hedgehog mushroom.
The mushroom’s light brown cap resembles a glazed donut, with white, furry spines hanging from its underside.
Gray, a seasoned mushroom enthusiast and bread maker in Longmont, joined five other fungi enthusiasts on a Friday forage near Nederland, led by Michael Heim, a former president of the Colorado Mycological Society.
Heim led an eclectic crowd: two chefs and their 13-year-old son, a pair of husbands living off-the-grid in Tennessee, a professional bread maker and a curious Broomfield resident. For Heim, mushroom foraging is a simple way to connect with nature and learn lessons from millenia-old trees and plants.
“Nature has it right and I think we can learn a lot from nature,” Heim said. “Nature has had it figured out for a while and all we have to do is pay attention and let it do its thing.”
An explosion of interest
The Colorado Mycological Society — the largest fungi society in the state — mushroomed from 150 members in 2019 to 20,000 in 2020.
Jon Sommer, the society’s president, said the COVID-19 pandemic created a “perfect storm,” for recreational mushroom foraging in Colorado. Public indoor spaces closed, and many people skeptical of vaccines and pharmaceuticals sought natural immune boosters, including fungi, instead.
“The people that live in Colorado are naturally drawn to nature and the outdoors,” Sommer said. “During COVID, people desperately wanted to get away from the crowds and being indoors, so this was a very natural fit for people in Colorado.”
Sommer and Heim also credit books and documentaries such as "Fantastic Fungi" and "How to Change Your Mind" for bringing mycology — the study of fungi — into mainstream western culture.
“Indigenous and Eastern cultures have been using medicinal mushrooms for centuries and even longer,” Heim said. “But the only Western use we had until relatively recently was penicillin.”
The antibiotic penicillin, which is used to treat bacterial infections, is derived from a mold.
Researchers began studying psychedelics for treating various mental health conditions in the early 20th century, but President Richard Nixon squashed the research as his administration declared the War on Drugs.
Oregon and Colorado both legalized supervised use of psilocybin, the naturally occurring psychedelic found in some mushrooms, while cities in California, Washington, Minnesota, Michigan and New York have decriminalized the fungi.
Sommer said psychedelic mushrooms make up only about 1% of the greater mushroom ecosystem, but a rise in using various kinds of mushrooms to help with mental health issues and treat physical ailments has broadened interest in the topic for Coloradans.
“There's this interest in mycology and all things fungi has grown as people have started to discover medicinal mushrooms and people have discovered a lot more medicinal properties of fungi,” Sommer said. “It’s now just everywhere in mainstream culture.”
Several studies have linked mushroom consumption to decreased risks of cancer, gut health and better concentration.
Those on Friday’s forage said the practice of searching for mushrooms helped them feel more connected to nature.
“It’s a renaissance of the heart,” said Mara King, a forage attendee and chef at Brutø and The Wolf’s Tailor, two of Denver’s Michelin Star restaurants.
“There's something really amazing about just letting nature teach you things.”
King said her work as a chef has also taught her about fermentation and letting plants lead the way.
“You’re guiding a natural process and learning and understanding these processes, and you guide your actions to have a positive outcome,” King said. “You’re just letting nature do its thing.”
Sandor Katz, who lives in the Appalachian Mountains in Tennessee and joined the forage while visiting Colorado with his husband, has written several books on fermentation. Katz said living in the woods and studying a natural fruiting process has brought deeper appreciation for fungi and their role in an ecosystem.
“Humans are not the end-all-be-all of Earth and its natural processes,” Katz said. “Nature knows what it needs and we’re here to listen to it.”
A warming planet and a shrinking sport
Mushrooms grow best in cool, damp, dark environments such as the lush forests of the Pacific Northwest. Colorado’s arid Front Range has never been a “mushroom hot spot,” Sommer said, but hotter summers and drier winters have created a particularly hostile environment for fungi.
“This year, most of the Front Range is really dry,” Sommer said. “When it’s dry, the environment is terrible for mushrooms.”
Sommer said there are “a few spots,” beneath shady, dense forests along the Front Range that are still hospitable for mushrooms, but the overall warming trends pose a threat to the entire ecosystem. Sommer said mushrooms are to the rest of a forest what apples are to an apple tree.
“Mushrooms are the reproductive structures associated with particular kinds of fungi which live in the soil,” Sommer said. “Without the fungi to help absorb the nutrients out of the ground, there wouldn’t be any plants.”
“Mushrooms are essential to the environment,” he said.