Trent has been “mushroom-obsessed” for about 6 years now. A native of Michigan, he grew up with morel knowledge ingrained. Shortly after that first huge haul of Colorado chanterelles and porcinis, Trent and his wife, Kristen, started blogging about their mushroomy adventures over at www.modern-forager.com. Today Trent’s fungi obsession has widened to include online mapping and studying the science behind burn morels. Each year the Blizzards travel to the Pacific Northwest at the end of May to hunt fire morels wherever the weather and the burns take them.

Trent spends months each winter creating and curating burn maps for 11 Western states using Dept. of the Interior fire data from the year before. He uses his experiential knowledge of trees, terrain, and elevation to recommend top burns for each state while paying close attention to accessibility and land use. In his free time he loves to further his cultivation knowledge, experimenting with a little bit of everything – lion’s mane, oysters, reishi, cordyceps, shiitake and more.

Trent is a web designer and internet marketer by trade. He was an industry speaker for many years – it’s always a treat to learn something new from him while he’s on the stage! You can expect great things from this line-up.

Trent is a certified wild mushroom identification expert in the State of Colorado and co-author of Burn Morels: A Modern Forager’s Guide to Finding Mushrooms.

At the Eagle Mushroom and Wild food festival Trent will be speaking on:

Gourmet Mushrooms of the Mountains – Learn about the top edible mushrooms in the forests around Eagle.  This class is appropriate to beginners or intermediates foragers who want a deep dive into the top edibles in our areas.  Porcini, Chanterelle, Morel, Hawks Wing and more will be covered.  Identification, habitat, seasonality, preservation and cooking will be discussed for each mushroom.

Burn Morel Mushrooms of Colorado – Learn about Colorado’s local fire morels which only grow the year or two after a forest fire.  This class will cover their habitat and seasonality as well as tips for mapping burns and finding the best terrain inside the burn perimeter.

Trent’s Previous Talks:

How to Find Burn Morels in Old Forest Fires
Learn how to find buckets of morels in last year’s burns by locating the right terrain, elevation, aspect and forest types. Forest fires are a tragic event, but there is a silver lining. As the forest regenerates in the years following a burn, morels grow like crazy in the charred terrain. Learn how to locate and collect these choice edible fungi in Colorado.

How to Use Online Mapping Tools to Find Wild Edible Mushrooms
Get ready to take notes! You WILL discover a mapping secret or two in this talk. Learn how to research potential mushroom hunting spots from your home computer as well as navigate into the wilderness using online maps. Special focus on learning how to recognize likely mushroom terrain from online topographic and satellite maps using free tools.