Ferns are important members of many of Earth’s ecosystems and are one of the most diverse lineages of land plants. Although ferns are often associated with humid, shady forest understories, they can also thrive in dry and high-light environments, and have long been recognized for their role as pioneer or “disaster” taxa: ferns are often among the first species to colonize new substrates following disturbance events, such as landslides or volcanic eruptions. The resilience of ferns and their ability to thrive in challenging circumstances is perhaps best exemplified by their survival and rise to prominence following the Chicxulub asteroid impact 66 million years ago and the subsequent Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) mass extinction event. The palynological record for the period immediately post-impact is depauperate, with virtually no evidence of pollen or spores in the years immediately following the event. However, above the K-Pg impact debris layer, in the period representing the earliest recovery from the extinction event, an extraordinarily high relative abundance of fern spores occurs, and this “fern spore spike” is now recognized globally as a biomarker for the K-Pg boundary and mass extinction recovery. The success of ferns in post-disaster scenarios such as the post K-Pg has long been attributed to their dispersal capacity and various aspects of sporophyte physiology, but the role of the gametophyte has, until now, been entirely ignored. We aimed to address this by growing gametophytes in control conditions and conditions meant to mimic post-impact environments that were cool, dark, and with acidified precipitation and elevated atmospheric CO2 levels. Our results suggest that while these conditions may have slowed spore germination rates, gametophytes of our study species actually performed better in the post-impact conditions (as quantified using chlorophyll florescence) than did their control counterparts. Companion experiments are ongoing to quantify physiological responses of sporophytes in similar conditions, and we hope that future studies on fern resilience will continue to investigate the role that gametophytes play.