Nutty, meaty and a little bit sweet, morels hold a unique allure among the wild mushrooms of Pikes Peak’s damp understory.
Record spring rainfall that brought havoc to El Paso County’s parks, roads and infrastructure also delivered a bumper crop of morel mushrooms, a prized delicacy that sells for up to $50 a pound.
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During a half-day excursion on Pikes Peak on Saturday, John Spengler of Colorado Springs, a retired high school biology teacher and mushroom enthusiast, and his 14-year-old son, Bennett, plucked just more than 2 pounds of them – an unthinkable haul compared with the handful of mushrooms he finds in drier years, Spengler said.
“I’ve never seen this many morels, ever,” he excitedly said Saturday as he spotted one cluster after another, including several that ranked among the larger he’d seen.
Conditions are ripe for other edible species too, suggesting that El Paso County mushroom hunters might well have their work cut out for them.
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