Today, we were planning on doing some type of hike along the Teton Pass, where we did Ski Lake. We were thinking about doing the "History Trail," which is supposed to be some old wagon road with some historic things along the trail. We kind of started doing it, but had forgotten the bear spray and started to get a little worried, so we decided to go on a different trail that seemed less wooded and had some more people on it. Once we were there, we noticed people standing a few feet off the trail and realized they were picking huckleberries! Huckleberries are kind of a big deal here in the summer. There are lots of cocktails featuring them, as well as syrups, jams, steak sauce, milkshakes and more. They are not commercially farmed at all- you have to go out and pick them! We decided to forget the hike and pick them, too. We ventured a little further up the trail and also off the trail.

Huckleberry bush along the trail... hard to spot if you aren't looking for it!

Huckleberries are pretty hard to find. I think we picked for at least an hour and produced about a cup and a half- maybe a little more. They are very small (some smaller than others) and sometimes one bush would only have 3-4 berries on it. A lot of the berries had been dried by the sun or picked by a bug. We ended up finding a few good spots with lots of berries, but it was a pretty time-consuming activity. I think if they were sold like regular berries, they would be very expensive... if it were me, I'd charge $50 or more a pound just for the labor! Apparently, one reason they aren't farmed like other fruits is because a huckleberry plant takes 10-15 years to mature enough to produce fruit. 

Huckleberries

Since we had a good amount, I decided to make a cobbler with them. I did get a pint of blueberries to supplement the huckleberries just in case it wasn't enough. (We ended up having berries left over, of course.) Huckleberries are actually very similar to blueberries, but a lot smaller, so this substitution should work in any recipe. 

Blueberry from the store vs. Wild huckleberry

The cobbler