Mount St. Helens: Biking the volcano's back yard

SKAMANIA COUNTY — It's a sun's-a-blazin', blue-sky, mid-summer afternoon and somewhere between Mount St. Helens and Mount Adams, Brian Mahon is playing coy. Straddling his mountain bike by the Squaw Butte Trail sign, he hides its difficulty rating from us. He's the only one who's ridden it before — thus the only one who knows what's in store — and for hikers and equestrians, we can see that it's been rated "more difficult."

"Move your hand, Mahon," orders one rider.

"Yea, come on," says another. "Let us see what we're getting into."

"Move it, Brian."

Mahon, 48, a physician's assistant from Castle Rock, laughs when he reveals the rating — a daunting black diamond with the words "most difficult" across it. From the others, there are groans and a few words not publishable in a family newspaper. We're at the start of today's third (of four) Mahon-led 8- to 16-mile mountain bike rides in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, much of them down dark, winding, sometimes rocky and always rooty trails.

I'm here for a rocking and rolling ride in St. Helens' back yard as a way of commemorating 25 years since the volcano blew. But it comes to be almost as much about Mahon as about the mountain.

For the most part, the other riders give him a hard time simply because he's one of those high-octane, can't-keep-still (or his mouth shut) types who just kinda invites it. They've been on Mahon rides before and know he's usually good for an epic adventure, chock-full of screaming technical descents, challenging cross-country traverses and big-time payoffs in the views department.

"When you ride with Mahon, you don't just do the same three rides everybody does," says 54-year-old Jim LeMonds of Castle Rock, one of today's riders. "Brian's always looking for a challenge."

But a few have also been on Mahon trips plagued by missed turns or outdated maps and that have resulted in long, craggy climbs up trails so steep they'd make a mountain goat cringe.

MIKE MCQUAIDE / SPECIAL TO THE SEATTLE TIMES

Riders ford Calamity Creek, about three miles in to the Siouxon Trail.

As we soon find out, this Squaw Butte Trail is one of the good ones. Fifteen minutes from that trail rating sign, we're flying down a winding, narrow singletrack, threading the needle between softball-size rocks and snakelike tree roots that'd look like they'd get a kick out of launching us over the handlebars.

Thousands of dark crunchy cones, fallen from the forest's firs and hemlocks, litter the trail; it looks, feels and sounds like we're riding through a giant bowl of Cocoa Puffs. We drop at what feels like free-fall speed, hopping downed logs, zooming through hairpin bends, launching off stumps from long ago. I'm having a blast and the whoops and hollers of speed-fueled joy that I hear echoing through the forest tell me that I'm not the only one.

Once again, Mahon dun good.

Honoring a lost friend

MIKE MCQUAIDE / SPECIAL TO THE SEATTLE TIMES

While brothers Jim and Dave LeMonds grab something to eat, Jack Berry gets to work fixing a flat tire, the 45-mile day's only mechanical problem.

The Squaw Butte is a little more than halfway into the Tour de Pants. (Tore the pants; get it?) That's Mahon's name for this four-rides-in-one-day epic over trails on the south sides of Mount St. Helens and Mount Adams. It's his latest memorial to Jeff Walker, Mahon's best friend who in 1997 succumbed to kidney cancer.

For more than a decade, Mahon and Walker were partners in one excellent adventure after another. They climbed El Capitan, explored the depths of New Mexico's Lechuguilla Cave and summited just about every peak and knob in the Northwest.

Now, each summer, Mahon tries to put together an epic undertaking in Walker's honor. On all the trips, just as he's doing here today, Mahon carries some of Walker's ashes with him.

MIKE MCQUAIDE / SPECIAL TO THE SEATTLE TIMES

Brian Mahon's snacks kept riders going on the Tour de Pants, four mountain-bike rides in one day.

"I'm the first to admit I can't have Jeff back, but doing a day like this, it brings him back," Mahon says.

Full speed ahead

At 3:30 that morning, after meeting at a McDonald's parking lot in Kelso, the six of us loaded bikes, gear and lots of food into four trucks and headed east toward the Siouxon Trail, about 18 miles due south of Mount St. Helens. Unlike Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, which extends from just north of Mount Rainier north to the U.S.-Canada border, Gifford Pinchot has loads of mountain biking opportunities.

The Siouxon is one of the more popular, winding through moss-hung timber and dropping down to Calamity and Siouxon creeks, both with their share of splashing, crashing destination-worthy waterfalls. "The Forgotten Forest: Exploring the Gifford Pinchot," a National Forest pamphlet, recommends riding the Siouxon from the west, because the eastside starts with a rocky, somewhat-exposed descent that drops 1,900 feet in three miles.

MIKE MCQUAIDE / SPECIAL TO THE SEATTLE TIMES

A rider contemplates a waterfall along the Siouxon Trail in Gifford Pinchot National Forest.

"It's a babyhead rock garden of switchbacks," warns Jack Berry, 48, an MRI/CT technologist from Kelso.

So, of course, after parking rigs at the west trailhead and shuttling bikes and riders to the east trailhead, that's the way Mahon has us ride it. At 6:12 a.m., we're hitching a ride on gravity's back, cutting back and forth down hemlock forest, crossing a couple exposed rock-slide areas that make me glad as heck my wife can't see me now. I'm not a downhill junkie per se, so it's a white-knuckle ride that has my forearms pumped out from squeezing the brakes so hard.

But it's not all like that and once past the not-recommended stretch, we ford Calamity Creek and it's a fun, rollicking largely creekside meander with only a couple scream-for-mommy climbs.

MIKE MCQUAIDE / SPECIAL TO THE SEATTLE TIMES

Tour de Pants riders take a moment to admire Mount Adams views, unaware they've taken a wrong turn. Up ahead: about 7 miles of unnecessary logging-road riding.

At about 9:54 a.m., after more car shuttling, we hit ride two: 16-mile Oldman Pass to Falls Creek via trails 151, 157, 171 and 152.

"It's the best trail in the whole damn place," says Zach Bays, a 30-year-old from Castle Rock whose mega-huge calf muscles make his lower legs look like they've been implanted with softballs. LeMonds' brother, Dave, 51, a physician's liaison from Kelso, is riding today, too.

Popular in winter with cross-country skiers, this route winds through thick timber and open forest with sweeping views south to pointy Mount Hood. It's also a bit of a roller coaster.

"It's got some big hills to pull, then a humongous fast downhill that smokes the asbestos off your brake pads," says Berry.

He's right. Though I'm fairly sitting on my brakes for what must be a five-mile descent, the trees, rocks, roots, clumps of beargrass, cones, fallen limbs, more trees, more rocks, more roots, pass by in a blur. I'm thankful for the concept of the car shuttle, which keeps us from having to pedal back up this gigantic hill.

Spectacular views

From there, it's on to Squaw Butte (2:26 p.m.), where Mahon plays peekaboo with the trail rating sign. We end the day on Mount St. Helens' southwest flank following the Toutle Trail from Blue Lake to the Kalama Horse Camp, about 10 miles. Personally it's my favorite and not just because the car shuttle involved less than 10 minutes of driving. It's because it's the one with the views.

About 3.5 miles in — after some rough patches through sandy, ashy, rock-choked singletrack — the forest opens, revealing a several-hundred-yard-wide lava flow with huge, up-close-and-personal views of Mount St. Helens, just four miles away.

In mid-July, the mountain wears hardly any snow, save for a few pockets in isolated creases near the top. It's just a big soft-looking pile of dirt, gouged by dozens of gorges and canyons streaking down its flanks. In recent days the news has been of numerous small earthquakes rumbling below but right now, all is still, quiet and in the golden early evening light, truly spectacular.

Forty-five minutes later, at 8:18 p.m., we're back at the Kalama Horse Camp parking lot, having completed the Tour de Pants. We're exhausted but happily content the way one is following something that's ridiculously fun and strenuous. Mahon toasts us and thanks us for helping commemorate his friend.

But already he's considering next summer's epic, which might be the 50-plus mile Boundary Trail that links St. Helens and Adams. He's ridden sections of the notoriously rough trail before, but never the whole thing.

"There are parts that are so nasty that I've pretty much blocked it from my memory," he says, smiling.

"I can't wait to go back."

Tour de Pants

Each ride in Brian Mahon's Tour de Pants ride in the "back yard" of Mount St. Helens is tough and technical, probably best suited for intermediate to advanced riders. A bike with full-suspension and disc brakes is highly recommended.

Getting there (and maps you'll need)

To get to the four trails that make up the Tour de Pants, make sure you get some good maps. The Gifford Pinchot National Forest map is vital, as is Green Trails Lone Butte 365 and Lookout Mountain 396. Green Trails Wind River 397 covers the area on the Oldman Pass ride, but the map is outdated as the trails aren't shown. For the Toutle Trail from Blue Lake to Kalama Horse Camp ride, try Geo-Graphics Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument map. A great map of the Siouxon and Oldman Pass trails can be found here: www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/recreation/trails. Click on "Southern Trail Guide Area."

Siouxon Trail (Trail 130), 8 miles; 350 feet elevation gain, 2,600 feet elevation loss.

To get there, take Interstate 5 to Exit 21 in Woodland. Head east on Highway 503 for 23 miles to Yale Bridge Road. Turn right and head south for 6 miles to Healy Road and turn left. (Chelatchie Prairie General Store is on the corner.) Go east for about 9 miles (the road eventually becomes Forest Road 54) to the Gifford Pinchot National Forest boundary. Soon after entering, turn left onto Forest Road 57 and soon left onto FR 5701. The west trailhead parking lot, where we finished this ride, is about 3 miles farther at the end of this road. It's very easy to get lost on these forest roads, so for all intents and purposes, unless you're with someone who's familiar with these roads, this is really the best place to start and finish your Siouxon Trail ride. (If you've got a map, the east trailhead is on a bend in the road on FR 58.)

Oldman Pass to Falls Creek Trailhead (via Trails 151 to 157 to 171 to 152), 16 miles, 950 foot elevation gain; 2,650 feet elevation loss.

While we went straight from the Siouxon to the Oldman Pass ride, see above note re: getting lost on these forest roads. So, here are directions to Oldman Pass from Highway 503. Continue east on 503 for about 30 miles past Yale Bridge Road (past Cougar, the road becomes FR 90) to the east end of Swift Reservoir and Curly Creek Road, FR 51. In about 8 miles, turn right on Wind River Road, FR 30. Oldman Pass Trailhead is 3 miles ahead on the left. To park a car at Falls Creek Trailhead where we finished, continue south on Wind River Road for about 10 miles FR 3062. Turn left and follow for about 2 miles to the road-end trailhead.

More trails

Squaw Butte Trail (Trail 21), 13 miles, 1,200 feet elevation gain, 1,900 elevation loss.

Follow the Oldman Pass directions to Wind River Road. For Squaw Butte, go left and follow for about 3 miles to Lone Butte Sno-Park. If you're doing a car shuttle, park finish cars here. To get to the Squaw Butte Trailhead, continue north on FR 30 for about 12 miles to Tillicum Forest Camp. Park start car here.

Toutle Trail (Trail 238), Blue Lake to Kalama Horse Camp. 9 miles. 400 feet up, 1,550 feet down.

Follow the above to Highway 503 and head east to FR 83, about 9 miles past Cougar. Turn left and head north for about 3 miles to FR 8100 (though some maps say FR 81.) Follow for about 4 miles to a T-intersection with FR 8123. Blue Lake Trailhead, your starting point, is about 2 miles to the right. The Kalama Horse Camp, your finish point, is about 3 miles to the left.

For information on the Siouxon, Oldman Pass, and Squaw Butte trails, call the Mount Adams Ranger District, 509-395-3400 or see www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/recreation/trails.

For the Toutle Trail, call the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument at 360-449-7800 or see www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/mshnvm.

Mountain-bike clubs

These groups offer information and camaraderie as well as organized rides to places such as the Gifford Pinchot National Forest:

• Backcountry Bicycle Trails Club, Seattle — www.bbtc.org

• Single Track Mind Cycling Club, Milton — www.stmcc.org

• Capital Bicycling Club, Olympia — www.capitalbicycleclub.org

• Portland United Mountain Pedalers, Portland — www.pumpclub.org

Guidebooks

"Mountain Bike! Southwest Washington: A Guide to Trails & Adventure" by John Zilly (Sasquatch Books) and "Mountain Biking Portland" by Scott Rapp (Falcon) provide trail descriptions for mountain-bike routes in Gifford Pinchot National Forest and Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument.

Keep an eye on the volcano

Some of these bike rides are within a few miles of Mount St. Helens, so keep an eye on the mountain. Should it erupt, ash fall could curtail your activities. For updates on mountain conditions, see the Web site for the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, current conditions: www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/recreation/current-conditions/special.shtml

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