Sandra

Dec 11, 2019

I really thought that this was going to be more of an instructional forage. I had the expectations that we would see pictures of what we were looking for and told what trees to look under to find the different types of mushrooms. I felt that we walked up a trail and were told where we may find mushrooms; kinda like go ahead and look. We did not find any at all. I know there are barriers to something like this; weather, bad mushroom year, etc. I just had a higher expectation than a hike in the woods for $95.00; I felt that was a steep price. I guess I should have done my homework before signing up for this. Disappointed in this "adventure".

Michael

Dec 10, 2019

I bought this trip for my husband, as one of his holiday gifts and he was SO excited. Unfortunately, he came back from the day so disappointed, sharing that part of the group actually left early because they were so frustrated w/the lack of content or teaching or any sort of "supported" experience. My husband noted that there was little to no orientation to foraging, to mushrooms varieties, to safety. There was no instruction other than "go out and pick some mushrooms and then bring them back to me for identification." He said the best way to describe it was that although the instructor seemed knowledgeable and kind, he came off as completely lazy and uninterested in doing his job. My husband noted that multiple people in the group were grumbling about the same thing: "what did I pay for? what are we getting for our money? we could have just driven up here together as a group of interested people and done this on our own. where is the value in this?" I am so disappointed and sad that the gift I was so excited about giving turned out to be such a disaster. I will not be able to recommend this trip to others.

Christine

Dec 10, 2019

It was a $95 glorified walk. This is not mushroom terrain. You might also wan to explain to future customers, the hike is straight up hill, straight down hill. I have been hunting for 30 years up North, I know terrain, and this was not. Patrick may have been doing this a long time, he is very nice, but gave out misinformation. I'll just say, my cousin and I found it to be a total ripoff. I will not be signing up for another. Lesson learned.

Grace

Jan 8, 2019

Our class on Sunday was canceled. As of today, no one from ForageSF has reached out to me to reschedule. On the Saturday before our excursion, I was concerned about the weather, so I emailed Forage SF, as well as called and left voicemails both with the Forage SF office as well as with our instructor Patrick. I was particularly concerned about driving out to Inverness in the stormy weather because I was having car issues. No one called or emailed me back. Given that the course info said the hunt would go on "rain or shine", I decided to make the trip anyway because we spent a lot of money on this. In order to make the drive safely, I went to the trouble of borrowing a friend's car. We made the drive out to Inverness from Oakland on Sunday morning. It took us 1.5 hours in the pouring rain and wind. Once we got to the Inverness Store, we waited there for 15 minutes along with the other mushroom hunters until our guide Patrick showed up (apparently he had been waiting for us in the parking lot while we were all in the store trying to stay dry while we waited). Then Patrick told us he wanted to cancel the trip due to the unsafe conditions for mushroom hunting. We all decided to follow the advice of the expert guide. He said we could reschedule for a later trip. Given the above, I am shocked that I have not yet received any communication from Forage SF about rescheduling. Not only that, but since Saturday I have received two marketing emails as well as this email asking for an evaluation of an excursion we never even got to go on. I am extremely disappointed in the lack of communication and customer care of Forage SF. I am requesting a discount for our rescheduled outing or a full refund for our experience.

David

Jan 26, 2018

Teacher was great. And, it was clear from the beginning that we weren't going to find many edible mushrooms in that area given the time of year. Was excited for that, so it was disappointing. But also lovely to get outside

Alexander

Dec 12, 2017

The guide leading us was fantastic. We enjoyed ourselves, we learned a lot and took home some really precious specimens!

Daniel

Dec 3, 2017

1) Why would I pay "Forage SF" when I can just contract the guide directly? 2) There should really be a refund for heavy rains. The tour stopped 1/2 way.

Shawn

Feb 22, 2017

Despite incredibly poor and rainy weather, I feel we covered a lot of ground and learned a lot.

Kelley

Jan 31, 2017

I felt like our guide had little knowledge about mushrooms and I came away with no knowledge of mushrooms except there are a lot of the species. The guide stayed in the middle of the trail and seemed annoyed if we asked him a question; he also commented that our mushrooms were dirty. I do a lot of guided tours and this was by far my worst experience.

Poppy

Jan 31, 2017

It was a beautiful day, a lovely area to explore, an interesting group of people to forage with, and the instructor seemed knowledgeable. However, I was expecting more instruction on mushroom identification, including a handout with illustrations of features to look for, a specific list of common mushrooms to be found in the vicinity with illustrations, and info on common edible mushrooms and how to use them. Instead, it was basically a hike in which group members brought mushrooms that we found to the instructor, and he would sometimes identify them and sometimes dismissively say to toss them. Sometimes he pointed out mushroom features to people who happened to be nearby. We frankly didn't feel that the knowledge gained was worth the cost.