"Mountain biking near Snoqualmie Pass" turns out to mean three completely different sports, and people regularly show up equipped for the wrong one.
There is lift-served downhill at the ski area, where you ride a chairlift up and a full-suspension bike down. There is flat gravel on the old railroad grade, where a hardtail or even a gravel bike is the right tool. And there is real climbing singletrack in the hills above Roslyn, 20 minutes east of us, which is where most of the riding that locals actually do happens. Different bikes, different seasons, different passes.
Here is the honest layout of all of it from this valley, with the numbers checked against the people who manage each piece of ground.
Three different sports, one corridor
| Where | From our gate | What kind of riding | Season | Pass | |---|---|---|---|---| | Summit Bike Park, Snoqualmie Pass | ~20 min west | Lift-served downhill, 14+ trails | Roughly June to late September, Thursday-Sunday | Lift ticket | | Palouse to Cascades Trail, Easton | ~5 min | Flat gravel rail grade, any bike | Snow-free months; tunnel May-October | Discover Pass | | Roslyn Urban Forest / Cle Elum Ridge | ~20 min east | Climbing singletrack and descents | Spring through fall | None | | Coal Mines Trail | ~15 min east | Flat, wide gravel, family pace | Spring through fall | None | | Teanaway Community Forest | ~40 min | Forest roads, 15 miles of non-motorized trail | Summer through fall | Discover Pass |
The bike park at the pass
The Summit at Snoqualmie runs the only lift-served downhill park in this corridor, and it is new enough that plenty of Washington riders still do not know it exists. Wikipedia's resort history records it plainly: "A summertime mountain bike park opened in 2022 and uses the Silver Fir Express and Central Express lifts. It replaced an earlier mountain biking area that closed in 2002."
That earlier operation was not a minor thing. The resort told Singletracks that in the 1990s "we had a mountain bike operation in the summer months and even hosted a couple of large events including a UCI World Cup downhill race in 1998" — won by Steve Peat and Anne-Caroline Chausson. It closed in 2002, and the rebuild took years of feasibility work, environmental review, permitting, and trail construction before the lifts turned for bikes again.
What is there now, per the Summit's own bike park page: "14+ Mountain Bike Trails" and "over 11 miles of trails," served by the Silver Fir Express high-speed quad, running "Thursdays-Sundays + HOLIDAYS." The trail mix runs from machine-built flow to "rowdy rock slabs and technical downhill descents," so there is a green line for a first lift lap and there are black and double-black trails for people who came specifically for that.
They rent downhill and enduro bikes, including youth bikes with full suspension, and run a full-service repair shop — which matters, because there is no bike shop in Easton.
The season is short. For 2026 the Summit listed a tentative opening of June 5 and a projected close of September 27, and notes that operating dates and hours "are not guaranteed and are subject to change without notice." By late September the park posts itself as closed for the shoulder season, with all mountain bike trails fully closed until the following summer. If you are planning an October trip around the bike park, you are planning around something that is already shut. Our guide to Snoqualmie Pass in summer covers the rest of the warm-season lineup at the ski area.
The rail trail, five minutes from the gate
The Palouse to Cascades State Park Trail — still called the Iron Horse Trail by nearly everyone here — is the old Milwaukee Road grade, and it runs through Easton a few minutes from our front gate. It is gravel, it is nearly flat because it was built for trains, and it is the one ride on this list you can reach without driving over the pass.
Two rides leave town: 17.9 miles west to Hyak, a gentle climb the whole way that skirts Lake Easton and then Lake Keechelus, and 11.9 miles east to South Cle Elum, flatter and quieter, crossing the Yakima River. Most people ride the western leg as a shuttle and coast back down.
The famous part is the 2.3-mile Snoqualmie Tunnel at Hyak, and it is a summer-only feature: Washington State Parks states that it "is closed from Nov. 1 - May 1, the re-opening date is weather dependent." In 2026 it opened on May 8. Bring a real headlamp rather than a phone, and bring a layer, because it is cold and dripping inside even in August.
This is a rail trail rather than a mountain bike trail, so it rewards a very different bike than the bike park does. Our full guide to the Palouse to Cascades Trail at Easton has the trailhead directions by the fire station, the current storm-damage closures, and the rules. A Discover Pass is required to park at the trailhead — $10 for the day or $45 for the year. The same trail forms part of the lakeshore loop at Lake Easton State Park, one exit east.
The singletrack: Cle Elum Ridge and the Roslyn Urban Forest
This is the answer for anyone who wants to pedal up and ride down without buying a lift ticket. The trail network in the hills behind Roslyn, usually described as Cle Elum Ridge or the Roslyn Urban Forest, is about 20 minutes east of us and is the closest genuine singletrack to this property.
Washington Trails Association describes a 12.0-mile round trip with 1,258 feet of gain to a high point of 3,486 feet, with "many ways to create your own loops" through the system. It is managed by Kittitas County Parks together with the Nature Conservancy, and critically for riders, it is built for this: WTA notes it is a multi-use area where "you'll be sharing the trail with bikers and horses," and that some trails are "designated downhill trails for mountain bikers."
Required pass: "None." That is unusual in this corridor and worth knowing.
For access, WTA directs riders off I-90 at exit 80 toward Roslyn, right on E. Dakota Ave. for two blocks, then onto Whitehead Road, where there is roadside parking. Because the system tops out below 3,500 feet rather than up at pass level, it dries out and melts out considerably earlier in the spring than anything at the Summit. Our guide to things to do in Roslyn covers the town at the bottom of the hill, which is a better post-ride stop than it has any right to be for a place of its size.
Coal Mines Trail, for a family pace
If the group includes someone who is not going to enjoy 1,258 feet of climbing, the Coal Mines Trail is the one to point them at. It follows another old mining railway grade from Cle Elum through Roslyn and on to Ronald — 5.5 miles one way, 11 miles round trip, with just 453 feet of gain and a high point of 2,375 feet. Wide, well graded, open to hiking, biking, running, and horses, no pass required, and about 15 minutes east of us. Our guide to things to do in Cle Elum covers the bakery and the butcher at the trail's southern end.
The Teanaway, for forest roads
North of Cle Elum, the Teanaway Community Forest is a 50,241-acre DNR landscape that lists mountain biking among its allowed uses alongside hiking, fishing, hunting, horseback riding, camping, and birding. DNR counts "15 miles of non-motorized trails" at the West Teanaway Trailhead, and the rest of the riding there is forest road. A Discover Pass covers it, and the three designated camping areas are first-come, first-served — see our guide to camping in Kittitas County for how those work and which ones are open.
Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance, Washington's largest mountain bike association, helped develop the Teanaway Community Forest Recreation Plan and informed the Towns to Teanaway Trail Plan in Cle Elum, so this is an area where the trail inventory is actively changing. Check their chapter pages before assuming a map is current.
Where you cannot ride
This is the mistake worth avoiding before you drive up a forest road. Much of the high country west and north of here is designated wilderness, and the Forest Service rule is absolute. From the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest wilderness page: "No motorized/mechanized equipment in Wilderness areas (this includes bicycles, e-bikes, carts, wagons, chainsaws, hang gliders, aircrafts, drones, motorbikes, ATVS, Jeeps, snowmobiles or any vehicle with a motor)."
E-bikes are named specifically. So are ordinary bicycles. That rules out essentially every trail inside the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, the enormous roadless block immediately north of I-90 that contains most of the famous lake hikes. Those are walking trails, legally, and there is no gray area.
Outside wilderness, the Forest Service's own biking page sets the default: bikes are allowed "on all Forest Service Roads, but not on all trails," and riders should "check trail regulations to see if bikes are allowed." Trail by trail, in other words, not blanket permission. Fire-area closures also move around on the Cle Elum Ranger District from one season to the next, so the forest's alerts page is the authority on any given weekend.
When the season actually starts
Elevation decides everything here, and the spread is wider than visitors expect. The Roslyn system and the Coal Mines Trail sit roughly between 2,400 and 3,500 feet and ride in spring; the bike park sits at pass level and does not open until June; the Snoqualmie Tunnel is shut until May 1 at the earliest. Our guide to when Snoqualmie Pass gets snow has the actual snowfall timing data, which is the same data that governs when the dirt is rideable.
A practical sequence for a shoulder-season trip: ride low and east in April and May, add the rail trail and the tunnel once it opens, and save the lift-served laps for July and August.
Basing here, honestly
We are not a bike resort and will not pretend to be one. There is no singletrack on our 54 acres — the trails here are walking paths through forest and meadow and around the lakeshores — and we do not rent or repair bikes. Easton has one gas station and a restaurant, and that is the whole commercial district, so bring spares and bring your own bike. The Summit's shop is the nearest rental and repair counter, about 20 minutes west.
What this place is good for is a basecamp that sits roughly in the middle of everything above. We are at 3000 U-Fish Rd off I-90 Exit 63 on 54 private acres, about 80 minutes from Seattle, with cabins, tiny homes, a 14-person lodge, 22 full-hookup RV sites, and tent camping. The rail trail is five minutes out, the bike park is 20 minutes west, and the Roslyn singletrack is 20 minutes east, so one weekend can take in downhill laps and pedal-up singletrack without either becoming an hour-plus drive.
We are also open year-round, including the long stretch when the bike park and the tunnel are both closed and the only rideable dirt is low and east. After a ride there are four private lakes with free kayaks, and the rest of the things to do near Easton — including the hikes on the trails bikes are not allowed on.