The best time of year to ride, region by region across the Western US. Each strip runs January to December; colour is the month's main limiting factor, from ten years of real climate data. Timing the high country instead? The live melt-out calendar tracks the snow as it clears.
Read the year
Jan → Dec, left to right. The July column is ringed. Hover or tap any month for the detail.
Time the snowmelt
The alpine opens for a short season. The melt-out calendar shows the high trails riding well right now, what opens next, and the last holdouts still under snow, updated every morning.
It depends on elevation. Desert and town trails ride best in spring and fall and get too hot at the height of summer; high alpine trails are snowbound through winter and melt out from late spring into July. This Atlas shows the best months for each of 83 regions from 10 years of local climate data, and the live melt-out calendar tracks the high country as it opens.
High trails across Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Montana and the rest of the interior West typically melt out from late May through July, lowest first. The melt-out calendar tracks which high trails are still snowed in, which are opening next, and which just melted out, refreshed daily from real SNOTEL and SNODAS snow data.