Well, last couple of days of July and the heat finally hit us here. It was at least 36C (97F) today but probably higher in the early afternoon. I left home at 11 going for a long hike called Redhead, one I haven’t done since last year. I wasn’t planning on picking huckleberries again today but I threw a ziploc in my camelback just in case. Good thing because I hit the motherlode on that trail and could not bring myself to pass it by.

click here for a larger image.

That haul (a full medium size ziploc) took about one hour to pick on 3 bushes. Last year, half that amount took about 2 hours on untold amounts of bushes. I’ve got them spread out on a cookie sheet in the freezer - once frozen I’ll transfer to a ziploc freezer bag. It;s best to do them this way so that the berries don’t freeze into one big lump. You can later open the bag and remove exactly what you want. Gazing into my crystal ball I see huckleberry margueritas, muffins and pancakes coming up

Redhead is a great trail for exercise - it climbs seemingly forever then comes down quite fast. I ran into several groups doing some serious berry picking along the trail. No cause for alarm though this year they’re so abundant there’s enough for everbody, including the group of 2 three or four I met that drove in from Kelowna (300km) to pick.

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