Mushroom foraging in Olympia's Tolmie State Park

2023 has been a tremendous fall for mushroom foraging in Olympia and the south Puget Sound area. With that in mind, I headed to our favorite state park to capture as many varieties as possible. Not only was this a fun and different way to explore a familiar trail it also gave me an excuse to walk slowly and enjoy a beautiful fall day. While my fascination with mushrooms is high, I have not yet worked up the courage and confidence to collect mushrooms for eating. For now, I am more than content to do all my foraging with my camera.

Tolmie State Park, located in the heart of the Pacific Northwest near Olympia, Washington, is a hidden gem that comes alive in the fall. The diverse ecosystems within the park, from lush evergreen forests to Puget Sound beaches, offered a terrific backdrop for my mushroom-foraging adventure. For this hike, I took the Four Cedars Trail and the beach trail to Sandy Point. You can see my route and the mushroom locations in the Relive video below. My attempt at mushroom identification is at the end of this post.

Mushroom foraging in Olympia

I counted 39 different fungus varieties on this outing: interesting individuals, troops, and some amazing clusters. I am still learning to identify these beauties and rely on the Picture Mushroom and iNaturalist apps for assistance. “All the Rain Promises and More” by David Arora and “Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest” by Steve Trudell are also great identification resources. I don’t harvest the mushrooms to look at the underside or get spore prints. This would help with identification but since I am not foraging for consumption, I hate to take the joy of finding a mushroom away from others.

Here’s everything I found and my best guess for its common name. The duplicates are included to show how different mushrooms look at different points in their lifecycle. If you disagree with an identification let me know and I will take another look.