Mount Pisgah Arboretum Mushroom Festival
Annual celebration of Oregon's state mushroom — the Pacific golden chanterelle — hosted by the Cascade Mycological Society at Eugene's Mount Pisgah Arboretum with walks, displays, and live music.
About the event
The Mount Pisgah Arboretum Mushroom Festival is one of Oregon's most beloved and longest-running natural history festivals, hosted each October at the 209-acre Mount Pisgah Arboretum on the Middle Fork of the Willamette River south of Eugene. Organized in partnership between the Arboretum and the Cascade Mycological Society (CMS), the festival celebrates the Pacific golden chanterelle — Oregon's state mushroom — and the broader fungal diversity of the southern Willamette Valley and surrounding Cascades. The event is specifically set within the Arboretum's oak woodland and riparian forest setting, which is itself a site of significant ecological value: one of the most intact remnants of Oregon white oak and Douglas fir habitat in the Willamette Valley.
The Cascade Mycological Society, based in Eugene, brings deep regional mycological knowledge to the event. CMS members collect fungi from the surrounding forests in the days before the festival, curating a display of identified species that reflects the specific fungal ecology of the southern Willamette watershed. Unlike the more urban OMS show in Portland, Mount Pisgah's festival is embedded in the landscape it celebrates — festival visitors can walk into the Arboretum's trails and see some of the same habitats where the displayed species were collected.
Beyond the mushroom display and identification programming, the festival is a full community arts and nature event: live music on multiple stages, food vendors, craft and natural history book vendors, children's activities, guided botanical and mycological walks through the Arboretum grounds, and art inspired by fungi and natural history. The combination of science, community culture, and beautiful natural setting distinguishes Mount Pisgah from the more exhibit-focused urban mushroom shows.
What to expect
The festival runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on the last Sunday of October. Admission is free for children and by suggested donation ($5–$10) for adults, though the Arboretum accepts any contribution and turns no one away. The mushroom display is housed in the Arboretum's main event space, with 100 to 150 identified Pacific Northwest species arranged and labeled by CMS experts. Identification service for visitor-brought specimens is available throughout the day.
Guided walks depart at scheduled intervals from the display building and lead participants into the Arboretum's oak woodland and riparian areas. Walk leaders point out fungal signs in the landscape — mycelium in leaf litter, mycorrhizal relationships visible in tree root zones, bracket fungi on dead wood — and connect the display specimens to living ecological contexts. The music stages run throughout the day with regional acoustic and folk performers. The food vendors emphasize local and seasonal products. The October Arboretum setting — oak leaves turning, the Middle Fork audible through the trees — adds a sensory dimension that cannot be replicated indoors.