The 16-Year-Old Mushroom Festival Hiding Off I-70 in Eagle

Sixteen years. That is how long this thing has been running in Eagle, and most people driving I-70 past exit 147 have no idea it exists.

Hamilton Pevec will tell you that himself. He calls the Eagle Mushroom & Wild Food Festival a "legacy event" that had been quietly happening for about 16 years but that "very few people actually know about." So he took it over. He runs Hamilton's Mushrooms out of Carbondale with his brother Lucien, and he is also president of the Western Colorado Mycological Association, which basically makes him the guy you want holding the flashlight when you are staring at something growing out of a log in the White River National Forest.

Here is the part people miss. You do not need to be some deep-woods forager with a fancy field guide to show up. A lot of this weekend is free.

The free part is the good part

From noon to 8:30 every day, the vendor hall at the Brush Creek Pavilion has free mushroom identification. Open to everyone. You walk in with whatever weird thing you found on a hike, and actual mycologists tell you what it is and whether you should, you know, not eat it.

That alone is worth the drive. Mushroom ID is one of those things you cannot really Google your way through. You want a human who has spent years looking at spore prints and gills telling you the difference between the one that makes dinner and the one that ends your weekend in a Vail hospital.

The festival runs August 21 through 23, 2026, at the pavilion in Eagle. And if you are not familiar with Eagle, it is small. County seat of Eagle County, about 7,528 people as of the 2021 count. This is a town of that size pulling in mycologists from across the country, which is honestly wild when you think about it.

The forays are the main event

The guided forays are where it gets serious. Saturday and Sunday, small groups head into the White River National Forest, and they cap each group at 12 people. So this is not a herd of tourists trampling the forest floor. Twelve. That is it.

It is $80 per person per day, and you have to pre-register. Groups meet up at cafes in downtown Eagle first (get your coffee, meet your guide), then head out. The leaders are not random. We are talking experts tied to the Pikes Peak Mycological Society, the North Texas Mycological Association, and the Western Montana Mycological Association. People flying in to walk you through the woods and point at things.

If you have ever wanted to actually learn how to forage instead of watching someone do it on YouTube, this is the format. Small group, real expert, real forest.

The food is where I would spend my money

Now here is the danger zone for me.

Saturday evening, 5:00 to 6:45, there is the Schlosser and Sanchez Wild Sage Culinary Dinner. Built entirely on wild mushrooms and foraged ingredients. It is