Weed Scene | Going to the mountains to pick mushrooms with Xiao Jing

Written by Jing (guide of picking group )

About the route: The secret forests around Dali. I don’t stick to a specific route, because I want to go to different places every week. However, each route is a place I have carefully selected and I like.

About mushrooms: Generally speaking, compared to Cangshan Mountain, mushrooms are very abundant on the routes in the deep mountains, and few people go there to pick them. However, the growth of mushrooms is uncertain every day, and the types of mushrooms picked each time in the deep mountains are also very different. So I still hope that you who come to participate in the event have an open mind.

In addition to mushrooms: in each different secret realm, we will also see some special plants that cannot be seen in ordinary forests.

Activity process:

After gathering at Pushi at 9:00, we took my van to the destination. It takes about 2 hours by car. After arriving, we hiked into the forest. The hiking time usually does not exceed 20 minutes before we started picking mushrooms.

The distance you walk when picking mushrooms generally depends on your personal physical strength. When you are tired, you can sit down in the forest to rest and have a picnic, while others can continue looking for mushrooms.

After picking mushrooms, I will give a lecture, and then bring the edible mushrooms back to the camp to cook chicken soup and mushroom noodles, or eat a farmer's meal at a farmer's house in the mountains (depending on which route we took that day).

We returned to the Dali Ancient Town around 18:00.

Why do you want to experience mushroom picking in the mountains?

Small scene:

This year is my fourth year of mushroom picking in Cangshan. I have gone from being unfamiliar with Cangshan and the mushrooms there to being curious, liking them, and now being completely familiar with them. This gradual change is a bit like falling in love. I am not good at dating someone for four years, and picking mushrooms in the same place for four years will also lose its freshness.

I want to find back the original joy of picking mushrooms. So, this summer, I will break up with Cangshan Mountain and go to the deep mountains outside Cangshan Mountain to pick mushrooms for the whole summer.

In the past, because of the busy summer vacation and lack of manpower, the picking team could only organize one or two mushroom picking activities in the mountains after the summer vacation. We all cherish this activity, which is like a mushroom ritual. With an unknown heart, everyone went to a fresh forest to find new and strange mushrooms that they were not familiar with.

Picking mushrooms in the mountains is like an unknown journey, and every time you go there you will have big or small gains and surprises. This feeling is probably brought about by the "unknown".

We often pursue "familiarity" and "stability", but these two things are often the things that make people gradually lose their feelings.