When do morels in Alaska usually start to show up? Our normal mushroom picking doesn’t usually start till August. Do they usually come up the spring after a fresh burn or does it take a few years?

The year after a burn is the best, two years after you can still find some but not as productive as the first year after the burn. Out here we usually get them in May/ June.

In our its normally after the first really good foggy morning followed by warm sunshine. We find most of our by lupin and williows. Its one of our favorite activities to do in the Spring right after we get to fish camp.

Ok thanks. I’ve seen a few before and I remembered it seemed a lot earlier in the summer than our other picking.

Ditto what Victor said. End of may beginning of June. 1-2 days after a rain is most productive. I have found a few places that they come up every year. One of those places is at our cabin in the debris where firewood is cut/split. But first year burns are best!

Agree with Victor and Nooksack, but don’t stop looking. I found these on the 2nd of July.

I haven't had much luck until about 2nd week of June. Then you get about a month.

I'm not Alaskan but we have the same climate and same morels.

There are several groups of morel species and their fruititng patterns/seasons are different. You need to remember that when planning your foraging.

The morel in Thurman's photo looks like a yellow morel (used to be known as Morchella esculenta, but there are several species). It is not a burn site morel although they do appear after fires sometimes, just not in great numbers. At ~55°N + continental climate, they start fruiting much earlier than burn site morels, usually in the beginning of May, and are good to collect for about two weeks until they're overgrown or destroyed by maggots. Black morels of the Morchella elata group (also a bunch of different species) follow a similar fruiting schedule. There are no reliable ways to predict good crops of these morels.
They are usually big enough to collect when bird cherry begins to bloom.

True burn site morels appear later in the season. The black-footed morel, Morchella tomentosa, usually starts fruiting in the very end of May or early June following a low-intensity forest fire the previous year, and fruits for a couple of weeks.


Another burn site morel, Morchella capitata (plus a couple of visually indistinguishable closely related species) appears another two weeks later, so it's not uncommon to find them in late June or early July, depending on your latitude. They're probably the best morels, big and fleshy. I think milkcrate's morels are from the M. capitata group.




this is a young M. capitata with a black morel (smaller but older; all other black morels around had already rotted down). Young burn site morels of the M. capitata group have a peculiar silvery powdering on the "honeycomb" ridges, from the translucent lightbulb-shaped cells they're covered with.


Like people here said they produce a bumper crop the year following the fire and then disappear. You might find a few two years after the fire but it's usually not worth the effort, with all the nasty tangled fallen trees, soot and bears eating young fireweed.


If you collect thimble morels (which are a very popular edible here, and are good eating as long as you boil them first), start very early. They start appearing when buds pop on their host trees (aspen and cottonwood, as well as bird cherry, mountain ash, and crab apples). False morels (Gyromitra) appear simultaneously but I wouldn't recommend eating them unless you know how to cook them. They're absolutely safe after drying, too.


At higher lattitudes (~°60 N and above), everything shifts to about 1.5 weeks later. Shady, cool places such as north-facing slopes and ravines add another week or so. Elevation is also a factor.

Thanks for the info, I would guess youre correct with your thoughts on mine because we are not at a burn site and the time frame works prefect.