Yesterday's Chinook Arch

What??? Just checked our weather forecast and I found little snowflake icons for this coming Thursday, 13 September!! I am SO not ready for this. We did get snow in the mountains back in August.

Yesterday, 8 September 2018, there was a second Fungi Foray out at West Bragg Creek. A handful of us from Calgary were there, plus so many people who belong to a mycological group. Many of them arrived armed with the dreaded baskets! Never a good sign, as that means mushrooms will be picked before those of us who are photographers and/or like to see mushrooms left where they are growing, get a chance to take photos.

This year is not a particularly good year for mushrooms and other fungi. However, we did see quite a few different kinds, including this little family growing along the edge of a tree stump. As always, any IDs given are only tentative - have no ID for these. This little grouping was not in West Brragg Creek itself, but in a "secret" spot. Three of us went there after the foray. A treacherous place to try and walk, but a few different species can be found there. Definitely not a place for dozens of people.

One of the things we wanted to check out in this second spot was a log that was covered in Blue Stain. On our last visit, we had photographed a white mushroom and when I got home, I noticed that the log below it had Blue Stain. We wanted to check if we could find any of the beautiful and unusual turquise fungi cups were to be seen. When we eventually found the right log in the forest (ha, ha!), we were delighted to see that there was a scattering of these teeny cups. Almost all of them were very pale, but some did have a turquoise rim. Will eventually post a photo of them.

The weather was just perfect for our morning's walk. On the drive west of the city to West Bragg Creek, there was a beautiful Chinook Arch. I just had to pull over on the highway and take a quick shot through the windscreen. It was so tempting to keep driving further into the mountains - West Bragg Creek is right on the edge.