The Eel Lake Trail is one I have wanted to get back to, particularly in the fall to photograph mushrooms. It's an unusual trail for a coastal trail in that it does not go to the beach and there is no sand. It circles around a part of Eel Lake in dense forest, giving you more a sense of hiking in the Cascades.

On this day we left the morning fog of Elkton and drove into bright sunshine as we approached the coast. We have done this hike many times and it's an easy start from the paved parking lot in the day-use area of Tugman State Park. We started seeing small insignificant mushrooms right away. But bigger mushroom seemed scarce. We did find a nice group of Inky Caps, which I photographed. Then we spotted some very small, distinctive white mushroom growing along some stems and limbs. They turned out to be White Maramius. I also photographed some Pig's Ears. As we continued along the trail it became fairly obvious that the area had already been pretty well picked of mushrooms. There was a glaring absence of Chanterelles and Boletes. Busted up Lobsters also caught my attention. Still we did get some mushroom photos, several of which I have been unable to pin down the identification.