First day's find -- two smooth chanterelles and one golden chanterelle

The camping trip to Talladega National Forest rated a 12 out of 10 to me because we found… to my extreme delight….. wild chanterelle mushrooms!!!

On our first day’s hike, I only found three — two smooth chanterelles and one golden chanterelle.  But I was ecstatic.  I have searched for them for years, but before this had only found the small orange cinnabar chanterelles.

The second day, lightning stuck twice for me.  I found FIVE chanterelles…  4 smooth and one golden.

Chanterelles found our second day of hiking

On our third day’s hike, we found enough to make a wonderful side dish with dinner.  Again… beyond my wildest expectations!

Finally, the day before we left for home, we went hiking one more time.  This time we were staggered by what we found.   We found chanterelle heaven!

We found enough for a real side dish our third hiking day

We discovered three huge patches of them.  They were on a very steep, rocky bank and I was afraid we would lose our balance and go crashing to the bottom.  So we gingerly descended the slope, using our hiking poles to keep us from falling.

Then we sat on the ground with our feet wedged against rocks to keep us from sliding… and we picked and picked mushrooms!

We ended up with around 4 pounds!

Hiking day 4 -- Chanterelle heaven!