Pick 'em: Morels are springing up

As melting snow gives way to the ashen scars left by last year’s fiery summer in Northwest Montana, the Kootenai and Flathead national forests are preparing for an influx of morel mushrooms — and mushroom hunters — in the next few months.

Morels only grow in the wild, and throughout the Northwest are known to flourish in wooded areas the year after a wildland fire.

Commercial mushroom pickers will have to venture elsewhere this year if they hope to cash in on the coveted fungi once the distinctive, wrinkled caps begin poking up from the forest floor. Both the Kootenai and Flathead national forests have opted against permitting for-profit mushroom harvesting this year.

“We didn’t really have the time or the capacity to do the NEPA required to offer that opportunity in a timely fashion,” Flathead National Forest spokeswoman Janette Turk said, referring to the environmental review process required under the National Environmental Policy Act.

The last time the forest issued commercial permits was in 2008, she added, after the epic 2007 fire season that burned across nearly 400,000 acres in Northwest Montana.

Likewise, the Kootenai National Forest only will allow personal-use morel picking.

“Where our stuff burned is back up in the middle of nowhere, and commercial permits are a big deal to administer,” said Quinn Carver, a Kootenai Forest staff officer.

Across Montana’s western border, the Idaho Panhandle National Forest has also opted against allowing for-profit harvest this season, but commercial permits will be available in the neighboring Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest.

Retired Flathead forester Betty Kuropat said forest officials face a suite of challenges when implementing a commercial morel harvesting program. They have to manage the permitting system, address camping needs for both sellers and buyers and address language barriers for the many migrant workers that come through the area.

“If they didn’t start pretty much as the fires were getting put out, that’s when they needed to start planning if they were going to do commercial,” Kuropat said.

And in the fast-moving world of commercial morel harvesting, clashes between competing encampments of pickers are not unheard of. Northwest Montana’s past mushroom booms have attracted territorial groups to encampments in the forests. During the 2008 commercial harvest, an altercation with migrant pickers at a campground near Marion led to the arrest of a pair of local men on hate-crime charges.

Turk added, “Because there’s going to be a higher volume of people and a higher volume of picking, there would probably be a need for safety patrols to make sure everyone’s playing nice.”

Locals needn’t worry, however — the Kootenai and Flathead forests will offer ample opportunities to harvest for personal use.

In the Kootenai, morel hunters can gather up to five gallons during the season without a permit, with a one-gallon possession limit per day. For collecting five to 20 gallons (or 50 pounds) of mushrooms, a “free use” permit is required, with a five-gallon possession limit per day.

After the first 20 gallons, morel pickers must buy a personal-use permit, which costs between $20 and $300, depending on the amount harvested.

And to prevent would-be profiteer pickers from gaming the system, anyone harvesting morels has to slice them in half as soon as they are picked, effectively precluding them from the market.

Within the Flathead National Forest boundaries, personal-use morel harvesting rules are essentially the same, with a couple exceptions.

More specific rules apply to the sites of last year’s larger fires on the Flathead. In the areas burned by the Bear Creek, Trail Creek, Sheep, Granite and Glacier Rim fires last year, personal-use pickers will need a $20 permit per 20 gallons harvested. They can purchase up to three permits with harvest capped at 60 gallons.

Permits and brochures, which include maps of special burn areas and more detailed regulations, can be picked up at any of the ranger stations for either office.

The region’s state lands managed by the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation had relatively little fire activity last year, especially when compared to the massive burns in the federal forests.

Kalispell’s state forest unit manager, Dave Poukish, said Montana allows commercial mushroom harvesting on its lands, but the state’s scattered forest properties make the practice inefficient. Personal-use harvesting is allowed under the state’s general recreational use licenses.

Morel mushrooms only appear for a short period of time under special conditions. But beyond the novelty value, they are also prized for their unique texture and taste.

“They are very mild, they almost have a sweet flavor to them,” Kuropat said. “They have a lot of texture, thick-skinned and kind of rubbery compared with a white mushroom. And they hold their texture” when cooked.

Like all mushrooms, the edible portions of morels are the reproductive organs of far-reaching networks of mycelia that thread through forest soils, eventually funneling nutrients up into the fruiting body.

They aren’t exclusive to burn areas, but often follow the ashen remains of the previous season’s fires. In Northwest Montana they can appear as early as April and as late as July, depending on temperature, elevation, precipitation and other factors.

Larry Evans, the Missoula-based founder of the Western Montana Mycological Association, said he doesn’t expect an early season this year, but added that it’s all but impossible to forecast the mushrooms’ emergence with any certainty: “Only fools predict morels.”

Kuropat, who became the resident morel expert during her long stint with the Flathead Forest, said there are a few basic rules of thumb for narrowing down the search area.

“The morels tend to be the most productive in mid- to low-elevation fires that have a mixed burn severity. They need to have burned hot enough that most of the duff layers are removed, but not so hot that it completely consumes all the canopy.”

Figuring out where the morels are growing is one challenge, but Evans noted they can be easy to miss, even if you’ve found the right area.

“They disappear in plain sight,” he said. “It’s a trick to play with your eyes, play with your perception, to make them jump out of the background. They have excellent camouflage.”

Mushroom fanciers who head into five designated burn areas in the Flathead National Forest will be able to pick up maps and buy permits at the forest’s district offices in the coming weeks. Permits cannot be purchased online.

Turk added that pickers should also remain mindful of the inherent dangers when entering a recent burn area.

“In forested areas where there were burns, you need to be aware of possible falling snags and stump holes,” she said. “If we get a wind event and you’re in there picking mushrooms, you need to be really cautious.”

Reporter Sam Wilson can be reached at 758-4407 or by email at swilson@dailyinterlake.com.