The Hotel Telluride, a 59-room luxury boutique and chalet-style hotel located in the Rocky Mountains, launched a new alpine mycology experience—a "Mountains & Morels" package. The package is available from August 1 – August 31, 2017 (subject to weather conditions, based on availability and blackout dates apply). The "Mountains & Morels" package is only bookable by calling The Hotel Telluride directly at (866) 468-3501 or (970) 369-1188
The package includes:
- Three-night stay in one of The Hotel Telluride’s Elite View rooms (King or Double)
- Daily breakfast for two
- Mycology Amenity; includes a mushroom collection basket, a mushroom cutting knife and a book on San Juan Colorado-area mushrooms
- Private transfer to/from The Hotel Telluride and Lizard Head Pass and/or Dunton
- Private guided mushroom foray with The Hotel Telluride GM and local resident Julie Hemann and a guide with a packed lunch
- Private three-course gourmet dinner with harvested mushrooms and wine pairing at The Hotel Telluride
The "Mountains & Morels" package will also be available over the weekend of the 37th Annual Telluride Mushroom Festival (August 18 – 21) which attracts mycophiles from around the country and celebrates fungi and all things mycology. The weekend offers seminars, lectures, demos, workshops and daily mushroom forays with mycology experts from around the world.
Colorado is home to 2,000 to 3,000 mushroom varieties and has the second-largest concentration in the country after the Pacific Northwest. Hemann has been foraging mushrooms in the Telluride area for more than 10 years and is familiar with the variety of local mushrooms and the best areas to find wild mushrooms in and around Telluride. As part of the package, she and a guide will take guests on half-day adventure high in the San Juan Mountains, to places close to Lizard Head pass and Dunton (exact locations are kept secret), to forage for an array of indigenous mushrooms, including Chanterelle, Morels and King Bolete.
Guests will meet in the lobby for complimentary coffee and tea and are chauffeured in a luxury SUV to the foraging areas high in the mountains around Telluride. Hemann and the guide teach what to look for when foraging and provides direction in deciphering between mushroom varietals. In the early afternoon, guests can enjoy an alpine lunchtime break with a packed lunch prepared by The Hotel Telluride. Upon returning to the hotel, the hotel’s culinary team will demonstrate how to clean the mushrooms the guests collected and create a personalized private three-course mushroom-themed dinner with wine pairing.