I was on a trail high in the Sandias a couple of weeks ago when I looked down a hill and saw … well, I wasn’t sure what, exactly, I was seeing.
I wondered if it was a turtle. I carefully made my way down the hill and realized it was the largest mushroom I have ever seen, much larger than I’ve ever imagined a mushroom could be. I was too scared to drop a dollar bill on it1 but my guess is that it was somewhere between 10 and 12 inches in diameter.
About a half hour later, I was struggling to get a decent focus on some tiny brown mushrooms2 when I realized there was something else between us.
Turns out my view was obstructed by the teeny tiny gray mushrooms above. I could just barely see them with my eyes once I knew they were there. I never even noticed the tiniest of the four, near the ground, until I looked at the photo on a large monitor.
That leafy vegetation surrounding them? It’s moss — just like the green stuff on the rock to the lower right of the giant mushroom.
I don’t want to actually touch any of those wild mushrooms.
Mushroom photography is not all that easy, as it turns out. They grow in very dark parts of the forest, which is a challenge in and of itself. Not to mention that, although gravity assists me in getting down to their level, getting up is another story altogether.
I love pics of mushrooms. I took so many when I was in Upstate NY 🍄
I love these pictures! Thanks for making my morning!