Stowe Forager

… And Then Came Stick Season

Autumn Is Beautiful But Brief in Stowe Vermont

Autumn is a very short season in the Green Mountains of Vermont. Here in Stowe, it seems to last about 3 weeks. Each week is packed to the brim with activity, and the small mountain town is in a constant state of hustle and bustle. Thousands and thousands of tourists come to Stowe, VT looking for things to do and sights to see.

As much as all the tourists can be annoying to any local, It’s not as though I can’t understand the madness. Autumn in the Green Mountains is an absolutely breathtaking event to witness. The tourists bring money to the local economy and the town buzzes with the collected humanity. And then, all of a sudden, It’s over.

Foliage Autumn Stowe Vermont — Autumn Leaves

And Then There is Stick Season

After about three weeks of decent foliage, with one week being the definitive peak, everything changes. Here in the Green Mountains of Vermont we enter our 5th season: Stick Season. Where does the name come from? You guessed it: when the leaves have all fallen, all that is left are the naked branches. Essentially just waiting for their fate of becoming a stick!

So stick season is defined by the lack of leaves, but also i is defined by what it is not. It is not winter. There is no snow. Well maybe a flurry, or maybe Mount Mansfield or Stowe Mountain Resort will get a good coating here and there and a gaggle of ski bums will hike up to ski down.

It is cold like winter and the temperature no longer feels like fall. Without the snow or leaves, and with the cold temperatures, there is nothing to do. Eventually the tourists get the hint as the restaurants and shops close up for the month before Thanksgiving and the town gets a glimpse of solitude.

What Is There To Do During Stick Season?

Nothing. There really is not much to do, and that is what makes stick season special to me. I find it as a much needed break from the madness. I sometimes call it meditation season because I find it is a great time (if not the only time) of year for me to really focus on mental health, spirituality, and meditation.

I do enjoy going for a walk or hike during stick season (duh, I am the Stowe Forager after all). But I will say that there really is not much to see. Everything is grey, all the time. And I mean everything. All the plants, the trees, the sky, the ground, the water – just everything, grey.

But there is some sort of mystic beauty in all this grey. As Adam Duritz of the Counting Crows once said: grey is my favorite color. There is something incredibly grounding about the color, and so too, about stick season in Stowe, Vermont.

Foraging or Photographing?

I find that on my regular foraging walks, it becomes much harder to find anything edible. Sure there are still some things you can find and eat, maybe some late berries of some sort, or a tuber root. And it can be fun to find these things, as it is quite hard to do, so perhaps more rewarding.

But for me, I just don’t really enjoy foraging for the things I can find during stick season, so it sort of ends up marking the end of my foraging season. I do find that I really enjoy take photos. I feel less pressure to get a good shot, as there is very little actually calling out for attention.

Instead I find myself becoming more creative with my photography. Taking strange photos of strange things, and maybe giving them a fun edit after. And that is stick season in Stowe Vermont. The Green Mountains of Vermont, but in grey.

Go Walk in The Woods

Whenever I am feeling down, confused, or directionless, there is one thing that I can always do to cheer up. Go walk in the woods. For me, there is nothing else quite like it. Living in Stowe Vermont, I do feel blessed for all the beauty around me. The Green Mountain State is majestic, and to not forage this kingdom of wilderness regularly, would surely be a mistake.

A walk in the woods is a sensual experience like no other. As I have talked about in previous posts, putting yourself into the wilderness taps into your ancestral past. A past where humans have spent most of their time on this planet – the wild. For me, nothing is more sensual than this. The sights, smells, sounds, feels, and delicious tastes of the wild awaken my soul like nothing else can.

If you are reading this and thinking I am exaggerating, or perhaps just crazy, you are wrong. At least about the first part. I can prove it to you. How? Go walk in the woods! Walk slowly, and try to fully absorb all of your surroundings. Become aware of life around you. The insects, rodents, birds, plants, trees, and mushrooms. Breathe it in.

The Inherent Joy in the Act of Discovery

See the big picture out here. How it is all connected. Then narrow your focus. Eyes zoning in on a particular patch of forest. In just one square foot of wilderness, there is enough life and peculiarities to keep you in discovery mode for awhile. Feel that joy inherent in the act of discovery.

On my most recent walk through the Green Mountains of Vermont, I had no real plan of what I was doing. I was driving around near Camels Hump State forest, looking for interesting places to pull over. Once I found a suitable place, I would pick a direction and just walk into the wilderness.

After joyfully wandering around for an hour or so, I finally came across something edible. Bear’s Head. A tooth fungus that has the texture of crab meat and looks like something out of a scifi movie. After taking plenty of cellphone photos and staring at the thing for 10 minutes, I picked one of the two, and returned to the truck.

I drove further down the dirt road until some new spot would call my attention. A nice pull off, with some flat woods stretching out into the distance. Not too long in I came across the most gorgeous Oyster Mushrooms I have ever seen. The white mushrooms gripping to the bright green moss covered log, flowing like sails, and covered in fall foliage.

Not all Who Wander Are Lost…

I picked a dozen or so and left the rest to be. Wandering around a bit more, I made my way back to the truck, stopping to grab 3 honey mushrooms on the way. I very much like foraging for a few different kinds of mushrooms, and would much rather have a handful of diverse mushrooms to cook up than a whole basket full of one species.

Just before getting into the truck, I spotted a tiny reishi mushroom within a foot of a birch polypore. I took this as a sign of some sort and decided to take the two of them to make a tiny batch of tea.

Driving down the dirt road back towards Stowe an overwhelming feeling of contentment swept over me. So much so that I actually had to think about what in the world was making me feel so content. Was it all these wonderful mushrooms from the forage? Was it the joy inherent in the act of discovery I had felt? The sheer beauty of the Green Mountains of Vermont in autumn?

Truth is, I have no idea, and it probably was a combination of these things. All I know is that a simple walk in the woods has the power to change moods. With a simple forage as the only goal, a wander through the wilderness, without a trail, seems to be a guaranteed way to reset yourself from the pressures of everyday life.

Funky Fungus

Often when I’m out foraging, I find myself more concerned with enjoying my surroundings than collecting edibles. I often will only take a small amount of something (which is great practice for sustainable foraging btw), and leave the rest behind. As much as I am a foody, and love to cook and eat my fresh foragings, I am also a photographer.

There are some outings, where I end up taking way more photos of edibles (and not edibles) then what I actually collect. Here’s an example: See these awesome honey mushrooms in the photo below? Mmmm, fresh, young and tender honeys. So young tho, that they have not even gotten a chance to spread any of their spores. Is it worth it to harvest these mushrooms for a delicious honey mushroom soup at the cost of their own propagation through the forest? I have no idea.

I don’t know if there is a right answer to that question. It really just depends on you, the individual. In this case, I was perfectly happy taking a photo.

Here is another example of the joy of the forage not coming from the quantity of things taken, but from the experience of foraging in itself. On the same recent walk through the Stowe,VT wilderness, I came upon a log in full bloom. At first glance, I definitely thought I was looking at oyster mushrooms. But the more carefully I scrutinized the fungus, the less certain I became (never a good sign when it comes to poison). I plucked an oyster off the log, and looked it its gills. They looked just like oyster mushroom gills, only they were bright, almost neon, orange (oyster’s have white gills). I decided to take my specimen home and look at the spore print.

I believe it was an oyster, they seem to come in a 1000 different varieties just in the Green Mountains of Vermont alone. This one I found to be absolutely stunning, and think it would be a wonderful treat at the table. And that’s what’s fun about foraging. It is a forage into a moment of time. Be it 10 minutes or 10 hours, a proper foraging only requires one to wander around discovering all the little joys.