Lewis & Clark NF / Little Belts

**Lewis & Clark NF / Little Belts – Tier A Assessment** You're sitting in prime oyster season right now—soil temps are locked at 66°F with consistent moisture averaging 0.20 VWC over the week, which is exactly where oysters flush hard. The 2.63" over two weeks has kept the profile wet enough to overcome the high desiccation risk at this elevation, and complete snowmelt means substrate access across your productive bands. This is a genuine A-tier window, not a narrow one. Oysters are your only play here, and they're the right play: the sustained moisture and soil temp alignment is textbook. Watch the next 7 days closely—you've got 0.11" in the last week, which is thin, and high elevation exposure means you could dry out fast if a ridge parks overhead. That desiccation flag is real, not theoretical. **Hot tip:** Hit north-aspect shaded draws in the 6,000–7,000 ft band where seepage holds longest; oysters there will fruit 3–5 days ahead of ridgeline colonies.

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.