The season starts late in the summer. Many trails are not open until August. Most of the trails on this system are in high elevation areas. The winter snow is slow to melt out on the shady side of ridges and in the deep forest. The snow is generally gone by mid-July.
Trees fall over in the winter times when the ash soils are saturated with water.
It takes several weeks before volunteers and Forest Service trail crews can log out the trails. In August, the ash soils dry out quickly and get dusty. Although the ash dust does not hang in the air for long, it is still not the best time to ride. The prime riding season really starts after the first rainfall of the late summer and continues until the snow closes the trails about mid-November. The Mount St. Helens ash does not get muddy but rather packs down like wet sand.