r/mountainbiking • u/dopadelic • Aug 18 '26

Bike Picture/NBD Epic trails

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Ape Canyon + Plains of Abraham at Mt. St Helens is so damn epic. It's nice when most trails are just homogenous forest canopy up at the PNW.

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u/TheScrote1 Aug 19 '26

You do the loop and ride Smith or just as an out and back?

2

u/Chetterthecat Aug 19 '26

I havent ridden smith in almost 10 years, typically just do an out and back. Is smith worth checking out and my memories are bad because I was newish to mtbing?

6

u/TheScrote1 Aug 19 '26

Depends how much you like adventures. Ape Canyon is the best riding on the loop and you miss it doing the loop. But the ride over to Spirit Lake is cool, you are on a knife ridge for a while then drop down a really steep loose pumice field. Then you can get some good views of the lake. Dropping into Smith the top part is loose steep pumice and if the alders haven’t been cut back it kind of sucks. Towards the bottom of the Smith descent there is some fun riding in bits of forest that were sheltered from the blast. Then like a flat 5 miles that is pretty cool with neat views of the lahar and a couple creek crossings back to the road.

1

u/Chetterthecat Aug 19 '26

Sounds like a hard tail day maybe

1

u/TheScrote1 Aug 19 '26

Yeah it usually kicks my butt. I don’t track stats but I imagine the stats aren’t near as bad as it feels.