Fall Foray 2023
What is this event?
Many mushroom clubs host an annual event at the peak of their local mushrooms season. The MSU Fall Foray has been ongoing since the early days of our club. This is a chance for members to meet, cook, foray, and attend talks and workshops.
Where will the Fall Foray be?
This year's Fall Foray will be held from August 25th-27th at the Francis Town Hall (2317 Spring Hollow Rd, Kamas, UT 84036), near Kamas, UT.
Who can attend?
This event is for MSU members (and their households) only. Kids and or dogs are welcome.
If you are not a current member of MSU, you can sign up by clicking the "Join MSU" tab on the site menu above.
Do I need to register?
For Talks, demos and potlucks: anyone can attend provided they are a current MSU member.
For Forays and all Art Workshops: registration will happen by paper sign up sheets posted in the Francis town hall on Saturday, 8/26 at 8 am.
What should you Bring?
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Any fresh mushrooms you found leading up to the event
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A dish for the Friday or Saturday night potluck
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If you plan to camp, any supplies you and your group will need.
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Musical instruments!
The following items are not required but can be helpful as you're looking for fungi:
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Basket
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Wax bags
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Knife
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Trowel
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Small brush
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Water
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A snack
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Sunscreen
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Any mushrooms you found on the way:)
Foray Plan
Forays will take place at 9 a.m. on Saturday, 8/26. Signup will be in person on paper sign up sheets, available Saturday, 8/26 at 8 a.m. in Francis Town Hall.
Carpooling to foray locations is strongly encouraged, so clean out your car if possible:)
Schedule of Events (times may change)
Camping
MSU will rent a field down the street from the town hall where most people will camp. A communal firepit will be provided.
Address for camping:
1914 South State Road 32
Francis, UT
84036
Google Maps:
Other Camping Options:
If you'd like to camp in the Uinta mountains nearby, there are several camping and RV options along the Mirror Lake Highway nearby (in the Uintah National Forest).
Dispersed Camping (not in a campground)
Camping in dispersed areas in the Uinta National Forest is allowed for fourteen (14) days in any thirty (30) day consecutive period. Find out more here.
Campground Camping
List of campgrounds in Uinta National Forest. Many are first come, first serve, while some are reservation only.
RV Camping
List of RV Camping areas in the Uinta National Forest.
Event Speakers
Dejon Wallace: Cordyceps Cultivation
Welcome to our Cordyceps Home Cultivation Class, where the captivating world of fungi awaits you! Led by experienced mycologist and passionate cultivator, Dèjon Wallace. This class is designed to empower you with the knowledge and skills to successfully cultivate Cordyceps in the comfort of your own home. From understanding the lifecycle of these remarkable mushrooms to creating the ideal growing conditions, our comprehensive curriculum will take you on an immersive journey into the fascinating realm of mycology. Whether you're a curious beginner or a seasoned grower seeking to expand your expertise, our interactive and hands-on approach will nurture your passion for Cordyceps cultivation. Get ready to unlock the secrets of this extraordinary organism and embark on a fulfilling and sustainable mycological adventure with us!
Sydney Freitag: Fungal Dye Palette of Utah
Description: Come explore the incredibly vibrant world of mushroom and lichen dyeing! In the Fungal Dye Palette of Utah workshop we will demonstrate dyeing with some of the best local dye species. You will learn the basics of fungal dyeing, including how to test mushrooms for dye potential, how to ethically harvest lichen, how to pre-treat fiber for dyeing, and dye recipes for Utah mushroom species.
Bio: Sydney is a geologist that has been living and working in Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and Nevada for the last 10 years. Her true passion is ceramic and fiber art. Inspired by lichen forms, she began creating lichen themed pottery and dyeing fiber with lichen. This expanded into an interest in mushroom identification and dye potential and her joining MSU. She has been learning mushroom and lichen dye techniques for 3 years and attended the International Fungi and Fiber Symposium for extended fungal art and dye workshops in 2022.
Katie Lawson: Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi For the Garden
Description: We often appreciate macro fungi for their ability to make mushrooms. But another type of fungi- the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF)- are secret weapons in the garden. These non-mushroom forming fungi perform many important functions for healthy soil, including nutrient cycling and soil aggregation. They also help increase a plant's drought and stress tolerance. We'll get to know the AMF and discuss ways to improve their populations in Utah's climate.
Bio: Katie graduated from McDaniel College with a BS in Environmental Science and Political Science in 2009. She began working on organic vegetable farms in 2011. Farming took her all over the country, including stops in Oregon, Maine, Georgia, and Utah. Her focus shifted to fungi after taking a three day mushroom cultivation workshop with Radical Mycology in 2016. Since then, she has completed two certificates in Fungal Ecology and Mushroom Identification through MYCOLOGOS. Katie started Fungal Focus in 2019 to help make mycology a bigger part of our daily conversations. Katie’s work has been featured on KRCL RadioACTive, PBS Utah Modern Gardener, SLUG Magazine and Catalyst Magazine.
Dasha Puchkovsky: Resin FUNgus
Come join a fun workshop where we will be working with epoxy resin to make a pendant or jewel with dried mushrooms to last forever! We will provide the instruction, resin, molds, supplies to turn your pendant into a keychain or necklace to take home! Feel free to bring your own dried wildflowers or mushrooms to use if you have any favorites that would fit in a mold ranging 1-2” in length.
BIO: Hi! My name is Dasha, I’ve been a big fan of mushrooms and hunting for them since I was a toddler. I enjoy cooking and baking, cooking with mushrooms I can personally pick is a favorite! When I’m not looking at new recipes or indulging in chocolate cake, I enjoy traveling with my husband and finding new restaurants.
Master Brewer Márcio Buffolo: Yeast's Role in Alcohol Production
We’re excited to host the current head cidermaker of Mountain West for a talk about an oft overlooked yet beloved fungus, yeast! Prior to Mountain West, Márcio was lead scientist at Shades of Pale in Salt Lake City, UT. He brings to the table an M.S. in cell biology from Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.
Tyler Hacking: Mysteries of the Morchella
Want to learn the secrets to finding morel mushrooms? Over the last 4 years Tyler has collected morel mushrooms and the soil they grow in from canyonlands all over Utah. The focus of his research is the ecology, environmental chemistry, and toxicology of different Morchella species. He will discuss the results of his research experiments and how citizen scientists contribute to scientific research. He will discuss the reproductive cycle of Morchella and how you can help to enable the mushrooms we love so much to grow more abundantly with specific collection protocols. Lastly he will discuss the 2023 continental Mycoblitz and the Mycological Society of Utah.
Bio: Tyler Hacking is a botanist who conducts research on the ecology of plants, fungi, their environmental chemistry and biochemistry. He founded the UVU mycology club and the Mycological Society of Utah. This year he completed work with the Mycological Society of America's education committee on creating the mycology merit badge and related activities for the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts of America. In 2022, he co-organized the first Utah fungi festival. As an agriculture consultant he uses fungal culture techniques to transform lifeless soil into sustainably farmable land. Currently Tyler is building a compost program for Utah Valley University and applying for PhD programs in mycology.
Lindsay Mackintosh, MSU Culinary Committee Chair: Cooking with Mushrooms Demos
During the cooking demos Lindsay and other MSU members will showcase how to cook mushrooms in different ways. You will be able to see a few different demos, ask questions and try the mushrooms. Some techniques touched on will be:
- how to rehydrate dehydrated mushrooms found in the grocery store
- how to pan fry a mushroom
- how to cook/season utah edibles found during the fall foray
- where to buy mushrooms locally and recipes to showcase these unique mushrooms
Alison Neville: Drawing Mushrooms
Alison Neville graduated magna cum laude in 2016 with a Bachelor’s of Fine Art from Weber State University with a two-dimensional emphasis. She lives and works in Bountiful, Utah as the Education Director and Gift Shop Curator at Bountiful Davis Art Center. Her work has been shown nationally as part of pop-up shows, galleries, fundraisers, and city-funded projects. Nasty Women Utah was organized by her as an all-female identifying show, protesting our previous president, and raising funds for Planned Parenthood Utah.
Her work varies widely including drawings on paper, dioramas, mixed media, textile, and polymer clay sculpture. Along with contemporary projects, she illustrates coloring books for adults (Fungi Fancy, Sacred Sloths, and Sultry Sea Slugs), served on the board for the Mushroom Society of Utah, and contributes miniature works to refurbished cigarette vending machines called art-o-mats.
Adam Luker: Mushroom Table Tour
Bio: Adam is a lifelong Utah resident who discovered MSU while trying to find information about the five species of mushroom growing in his front yard. He took his (at the time) homeschooling family into the Uintas for an MSU foray the next weekend, and was immediately hooked on the science and wonder of these underappreciated organisms. Always eager to learn new things, Adam doesn't always find time for being as active a mushroom-hunter as he'd like (he's also a business owner, author, technology guru, teacher, woodworker, naturalist, father of five, devout Christian, and many other roles) but he always thoroughly enjoys it. He took over the MSU presidency at the request of founder Ardean Watts and could not be more pleased with the leadership team that has succeeded him.
Erin Moore: Kids Activity
Kids get the chance to learn and play in a low-key illustration/creative-writing setting where they will observe what features of different fungus give them their common names (the names most people call mushrooms that are easier to remember than their scientific, Latin names). After showing examples of mushrooms and their real common names, kids are invited to illustrate or color-in print-outs of a mushrooms along with the creative common name they’d give it and why, even if it already has one. If they want to, they can even invent a new fungus, as long as they describe what makes it unique. All the silly names and ideas are encouraged here!
Bio:
Erin works in the local afterschool world, where she enjoys running a cooking club with kids and where this last year she grew culinary mushrooms with them to teach them about how mushrooms grow, why they are important and how good they can taste! She started foraging for fungi in 2022 and loves looking for wild edibles while finding lovely, odd fungi along the way.
