Once a year, the Mushroom Festival in Colorado (USA) attracts mushroom lovers from all over the world to come here, to experience many wonderful days together: living in the wild, learning and sharing knowledge about mushrooms, getting to know people who share the same interests as you,... Follow photographer Theo Stroomer to explore a day at this year's festival, to see what's interesting in the festival for mushroom lovers.
Mushroom Festival
First held in 1891,Telluride Mushroom Festivalfeaturing everything mushroom-related – from the latest advances in mycology to a dinner featuring the region’s famous wild foods. Held annually for 130 years, the Mushroom Festival is a celebrated event with a colorful history, in one of the most beautiful locations in the world – the town of Telluride in southwest Colorado (USA).
A mushroom hunt during the Telluride Mushroom Festival on August 21.
There are people like Katrina Blair - a wild food expert, who walked nearly 70 miles over the course of a week, from Durango to Telluride, to attend the Mushroom Festival.
This year, the festival runs for five days, August 18-22. During those last days of August, mushrooms and mushroom lovers can be found all over Colorado. Many visitors from as far away as Canada, Chile, and Hawaii attend and participate in the festival activities: mushroom lectures, mushroom identification workshops, networking opportunities, delicious meals, and mushroom hunts.
Mushroom hunters Liz Bik and Julian Paik (center) pose for a photo during their mushroom hunt on August 20. Cassandra Owen (right) goes mushroom hunting on August 21.
Mary Beath brushes a mushroom she found while mushroom hunting at the Festival.
Russula shrimp and Armillaria (honey mushrooms) are found in the Festival.
The hunted mushrooms were scattered on a towel.
The morning after the rain (the perfect time for mushrooms), I joined a group of other mushroom lovers for a walk. We enjoyed nature on a meadow on the mountainside, foraging for mushrooms in the forest and collecting them to identify the species. The mountain was full of mushrooms, in just a few hours we found dozens of different types of mushrooms.
A pine mushroom being enjoyed outdoors.
Mushroom jewelry is sold at the festival.
Festival goers are looking at mushrooms in a tent.
Roger Levine and a Calvatia booniana mushroom on display.
That weekend, there was a parade through downtown Telluride, filled with mushroom-inspired costumes. The parade participants had been preparing for weeks, even months, in advance. “My costume was a pholiota squarrosa mushroom,” Debbie Klein told me in our temporary dorm room. She had attached Hershey’s Kisses to her hats to resemble the shaggy spikes on a mushroom cap.
Left: A creative mushroom headdress. | Right: Debbie Klein dressed as a pholiota squarrosa mushroom, with a headdress adorned with Hershey's Kisses.
The Mushroom Festival parade through Telluride's main street.
That Saturday afternoon, Phoenix Fuller Thelonius True Heart Skookum River Blythe Ford paraded in a nearly six-foot-tall costume with an ink-splattered mushroom cap. Five friends, wrapped in plastic, leaned against each other to form a bag of soft enoki mushrooms. The marchers sang and danced, also sporting a plethora of mushroom symbols.
People holding signs at the Telluride Mushroom Festival Parade. And in the middle is Phoenix Fuller Thelonius True Heart Skookum River Blythe Ford in costume with a pitch-black mushroom cap.
A mushroom car and five people dressed as enoki mushrooms.
As the parade ended, I asked a man with mismatched, colorful socks what his plans were for the evening.
"Eat mushrooms" - he replied with a smile.
An - Photo: Theo Stroomer
An - Photo: Theo Stroomer- Source: Travel & Leisure
