Somewhere in the thick forest above Red Feather Lakes, mushroom foragers Tom McKinnon and Jay Berger were puzzling over a backcountry map, debating the most approachable route to the Pearl Fire burn scar. The130 acres of scorched mountaintop that burned last September in a remote part of Northern Larimer County may hold a treasure trove of mushrooms.
There are no hiking trails here. McKinnon and Gerber traced out a rough route towards the northeastern perimeter of the scar. They pushed ahead through the gnarly terrain, but a few scratches hardly register when you’ve caught the fever for burn morels, a very special kind of wild mushroom.
“I don’t think we’d come walking up these rocky hillsides and over all these downed trees just looking for any other mushroom,” Berger said. “You really have to work hard to find burn morels.”…