Every summer in Montana, starting somewhere near the
end of July and extending through most of August, the huckleberries ripen where
they grow wild in the mountains. Huckleberries tend to ripen at lower
elevations first and then the ripening gradually ascends up through the higher
peaks. I have been following the
ripening berries from valley floors to the powder-horn peaks and gun-sight
passes for the last twenty years.
During a summer of abundance, I might pick six to
eight gallons. I recall one year when a
fungal blight called mummy berry decimated the berries in all of my normal
“honey holes.” That year, several days
of seeking everywhere yielded barely a cup of berries.
The summer of 2012 provided a bumper crop of
berries—maybe the best I have ever seen.
Yesterday, several of my berry-picking companions drove out to my house
and we baked several huckleberry pies using some of our gathered bounty. We did not notice until we pulled one set of
pies from the oven what we had also made.
The picture below says it all.
--Mitchell
Hegman
The cooks expressed themselves well.
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