From coastal Central California through Oregon to southern Washington and British Columbia, the red huckleberry ("Vaccinium parvifolium") is found in the maritime-influenced plant community. In the Pacific Northwest and mountains of Montana and Idaho, this huckleberry species and several others, such as the black "Vaccinium" huckleberry ("V. membranaceum") and blue (Cascade) huckleberry ("V. deliciosum"), grow in various habitats, such as mid-alpine regions up to above sea level, mountain slopes, forests, or lake basins. The plant grows best in damp, acidic soil having volcanic origin, attaining under optimal conditions heights of , usually ripening in mid-to-late summer or later at high elevations. Huckleberry was one of the few plant species to survive on the slopes of Mount St. Helens when the volcano erupted in 1980, and existed as a prominent mountain-slope bush in 2017.