Smith Creek, Mount Saint Helens * Mountain Bike Trail
Typical Season: Summer and Fall
Location : Approximately one hour northeast of Woodland,Washington. Near Mount Saint Helens.
Web cam at Mt. St. Helens
Data: Download map for Smith Creek Mountain bike trail
Short Description of trails: Begin along the Muddy River traveling west moving in and out of the forest and up and down small hills. Eventually enter thicker woods and climb to up above Ape Canyon. Move west out into the pumice fields making a right at a juction and out into the open terrain. Follow the main trail across the Plains of Abraham north. Make a moderate climb onto a hillside, in and out of several creek drainages, and finally onto Windy Ridge. Walk your mountain bike down a wooden staircase to an old roadbed. Follow this roadbed to the Windy Ridge Viewpoint parking lot. Take FSR 99 northeast passing Smith Creek Viewpoint and on to the Smith Creek Trailhead. Drop down into the Smith Creek trail. Embrace the pumice while dodging in and out of bushes. Ford the creek moving south and be careful so as not to get lost. Sometimes there will be large wooden poles sticking out of the ground. Follow those. Continue south along the sometimes faint trail between two braids of Smith Creek. Eventually you will drop down from a small plateau and make a difficult to see right turn, then immediately cross the creek west. Travel south again, cross Ape Creek. The trail begins to follow an old road bed to Lava Canyon. Here you have some options. Cross Lava Creek Canyon directly south on a crude bridge (shorter option), or climb west for about 1/2 mile until you reach a junction, then turn left to cross a good foot bridge shortly afterwards, then travel back towards Smith Creek. Once across Lava Creek Canyon gain the old road bed to some camping areas and a maintained road FSR 8322. Climb this until you reach a t intersection and turn right to meet FSR 83. Turn right on FSR 83 and make it back to the start point.
All information here is subject to inaccuracies. Use at your own discretion.
