I drove through the Cascades on my way back from Eastern Oregon. My plan was to stop often to see if I could find some mushrooms. I tried stopping three different times in what I would consider ideal locations. Daphne and Cyprus were kind of cranky from all the time spent in the car, so they were not down with a mushroom hunt at all.

This was the last place that we stopped. A large part of this forest burned about 3 years ago. It was a crazy, scary out of control fire. This is right off the road. I thought I might find some morels, especially considering I was at the summit of the Cascades on the east side. It looks like the forest hasn’t recovered enough yet for mushrooms–either that, or I am really missing them.

As sad and eerie as the burn looks, I actually think it is really beautiful also.