Bitterroot / Sapphire

**Bitterroot/Sapphire Tier A: The Window is Open, But Narrow** You've hit the narrow band where spring moisture has stabilized soil conditions (69.8°F, sustained VWC above threshold for a full week) while snowmelt is still accelerating—this is peak morel and spring king territory. True morels and spring kings are your bread-and-butter here; both reward fast legwork in the next 48–72 hours before desiccation accelerates upslope. The conks (chaga, red-belted, birch polypore) are secondary plays—they're already fruiting or will fruit over weeks, not days. The real limiting factor is evaporation: only 0.3" in the last week and SWE at 28% of normal means the moisture window will collapse fast once daytime heating peaks. Skip the gyromitras and stinkhorns—they're technically viable but noise in this scenario. Ground truth: get into the 5,880–6,500 ft band on south aspects *today or tomorrow*. North-facing slopes above 6,880 ft are still too cold. **Hot tip:** Focus melt-zone boundaries where seepage intersects the snowline—morels fruit densest in that transition, not in the open meadow.

Generated by Claude (Anthropic) from the structured weather, soil, and phenology data on this page. The LLM can misread edge cases — treat this as a starting hypothesis, not a guarantee. Always verify conditions on the ground before committing to a long drive.