Mount St Helens National Volcanic Monument

Hello all, and greetings from Finland – land of thousands of lakes in Northern Europe.  I work for Nokia and recently got a chance to spend a weekend in Seattle before starting some work together with Microsoft. Some 14 years ago I was hiking in the Mt St Helens area and thought It would be nice to go and explore the area on mountain bike.  After some Googling around I found PUMP site and got in touch with David Anderson. Thanks David for excellent hints on selecting the trails to study.

The Smith Creek trail provides an important link to the IMBA epic Ape Canyon and Smith Creek Loop Trail.  For those doing the whole loop it is a 25 mile ride of scenery unlike any that can be experience anywhere else.  Short portions of the lower Smith Creek travel on what used to be Road 92.  Riding on some of those sections of doubletrack is much like riding through the hallway leading to the audience room in the Wizard of Oz.  The impact of the 1980 eruption can still be noted on virtually all sections of the loop trail.  Ash and pumice blanketed the slopes throughout the area and in subsequent winters all that material got washed down the slopes, with some of it blocking culverts along the old Road 92.  One such blockage created a pond that was about six feet deep, the overflows from which severely eroded what used to be a wide logging road down to a narrow ledge that's less than 3 feet wide.  Any further erosion of the ledge in that section of trail is on would virtually close the entire Smith Creek trail down to all use depriving mountain bikers one of the premier trails in the Pacific Northwest. 

We came from near and far to pay homage to the Mountain that rules all.

 (photo verslowrdr)

From as close as LaCenter to as far as Norway they came

(photo David A's Photos)

 There was no sleeping in

photo David A's Photos

There were trails to ride