Cancellation Policy
If you plan a hike with Josh, he will schedule your hike in his calendar and this will leave him unavailable for other opportunities. Should you need to cancel, please do so with 24-hours notice. If you do not give 24 hours notice, Josh asks for $25 per person as a way to honor his time, as it will be hard to book another hike on such short notice.
Confirm or Cancel you reservation for the hike the evening before the hike.
Considerations Prior to the Hike
- Bring plastic bags to forage plants and paper bags to forage mushrooms. You can also bring woven baskets instead of paper and plastic bags.
- Bring close-toed shoes and ideally, hiking boots, especially if it is muddy.
- In warmer months please protect yourself from the sun in the ways that work best for you.
- Prepare for insects as well. There are natural bug sprays that work well.
- Watch the weather and dress accordingly.
- You can bring well-behaved dogs, they’ll enjoy the outdoors but it might make foraging a bit more difficult if we go off-trail.
Acknowledgement of Risk and Personal Autonomy
People tend to be scared of foraging due to the likelihood that they might eat something poisonous or deadly. This is a very real concern and one we will address on each hike. However, this is also a concern that you might want to consider when shopping at a grocery store. You can easily buy products that can kill you if ingested at the grocery store. The reason they don’t kill you is because you don’t put them in your mouth. Once we identify edible species and the deadly ones, you will start to see patterns and differences in which ones can be eaten and which ones should be left alone.
In addition to not putting something in your mouth, there is also the likelihood of getting poison ivy, bee stings, thorns, scrapes, scratches, and possibly falling. Again, this is not to scare anyone away from the outdoors, but this is to let you know that walking through the woods requires mindfulness and could involve risks. By attending this hike you accept these risks and agree to hold Empa-Tea LLC and Josh Wayne harmless. We will work together to identify any potential sources of harm. When poison ivy is growing in the spring and summer you will learn what it looks like and how to avoid it, or how to wash it off effectively. You will learn to avoid (and even eat) green briar and also how to “check before you wreck”. Bees will generally avoid you so long as you do not step on them or their home. If you have allergies, please walk with an EpiPen.
Foraging is an activity that can be both life serving, and life-taking. If you do not know exactly what you are putting into your mouth, there can be serious consequences. And even if you know that you are eating a supposedly edible plant, there is the potential to still suffer an overdose. Take nutmeg, it’s delicious in small amounts but poisonous in larger amounts causing hallucinations and possibly death. Since you are most likely relatively new to these wild plants, it is important to start slow, trying only the smallest bit of the identified edible plant or mushroom before making it your meal. Once you understand how the plant or mushroom interacts with your body, you can try a bit more the next day. If you still see no adverse reactions, you can consume this plant as is generally recommended. It is possible to have allergic reactions to plants or mushrooms that you have not eaten. This is why we make sure to identify our food 100% before eating, and why we start small and see how we react.
At Empa-Tea we require all clients to take responsibility for their actions and the actions of their children. Children often put things in their mouths on a regular basis. While this usually will not be an issue, there are plenty of mushrooms, plants, and insects that could cause serious harm to your child. This is no different than leaving a child in a house with sharp objects, or legos. By purchasing a foraging service, you take responsibility for the decisions of your party.
Note: Some wild mushrooms and plants are poisonous, and they may resemble edible species. Eating them may make you sick or kill you. It is your responsibility to identify any wild food with 100% certainty before you eat it.
We will talk about ways to identify mushrooms and how to know which mushrooms are deadly and which are edible. For beginners, we often recommend waiting to eat mushrooms that might have poisonous or deadly lookalikes until you have more experience foraging some of the easier to identify mushrooms with no deadly lookalikes.
The author of this web site is not responsible or liable for any ill effects that result from visitors to this web site ingesting wild mushrooms or plants.