Do you love eating mushrooms, want to know more about their medicinal effect, or consider yourself a fungophile? Then pack your bags and get ready to experience Shroomfest in Telluride this August 16 - 19. Interest in mushrooms stems
from a range of inclinations, from culinary to scientific to just plain
curiosity.
Shroomfest will be
celebrating its 32nd year in existence and is run by long-time Telluride
resident Art Goodtimes. Telluride's box canyon serves as the perfect
backdrop and location for this annual event. The San Juan Mountains surrounding Telluride are famous for their bounty
of fungal species thanks to summer monsoon rains. Brought to Telluride in 1981 by Dr. Emanuel Salzman, mycologist Gary
Lincoff, medical guru Dr. Andrew Weil, myco-researcher Paul Stamets and others associated with the Denver-based non-profit Fungophile,
Inc., the event was initially called Wild Mushrooms Telluride. It was an
educational conference with the core objective to educate the public about all aspects of
the mycological world. After some disagreed over the primary objectives and purpose, a few led by the Salzman family and with
the help of local mushroom enthusiasts Art Goodtimes and John Sir
Jesse, evolved the event into what it is today in Telluride’s spectacular box canyon.
This four-day destination event
“celebrates everything fungal & entheogenic” and features a multitude of activities that explore the entheogenic, as well as
the medicinal, culinary, toxic, cultivation and identification aspects
of fungi. Popular activities range from mushroom lectures given by the most
knowledgeable of experts, to cooking with mushrooms and guided hikes with
instruction on how to find the freshest (and safest) mushrooms. One of the standout events is the famed mushroom parade down Telluride’s main street.
Interested in getting your shroom-on? Visit the official website here.
