USFS National Forest System Trails · Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest · Montana · Updated June 2026
Swift Reservoir (USFS trail 143) is a 3.1 mi trail in Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest, Montana. Mountain bikes are designated as allowed year-round, with no Class 1 e-bike designation on record.
Can I bike Swift Reservoir?
| Use | Status | Season on record |
|---|---|---|
| Mountain bike | Allowed | year-round |
| Class 1 e-bike (pedal-assist, 20 mph) | Restricted | — |
| Class 2 e-bike (throttle, 20 mph) | Restricted | — |
| Class 3 e-bike (pedal-assist, 28 mph) | Restricted | — |
Zooming out: across Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest, 91% of rideable trail miles are open to mountain bikes — a Bike Access Grade of A.
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About this trail
In Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest, Montana, Swift Reservoir (USFS trail 143) covers 3.1 mi of National Forest System trail. Everything below comes straight from the US Forest Service National Forest System Trails dataset — length, surface, slope-derived difficulty, and the specific bike and e-bike designations on record — so you can check legality before you load up. USFS records list its surface as native material. No grade band is recorded, so a steepness-based difficulty isn't available for this trail. Bike use is designated as allowed year-round. No e-bike class (1, 2 or 3) is designated on this trail in the USFS data, so treat it as a non-motorized route unless a posted order says otherwise. The route is mapped as USFS Trail Class 3 on the agency's 1-to-5 development scale, where 1 is the most primitive, minimally maintained tread and 5 is the most developed. Treat this as a planning reference rather than a live conditions report, and verify any time-sensitive closure or order with the ranger district that manages Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest.
Frequently asked questions
- Can you mountain bike on Swift Reservoir?
- Yes. Mountain bikes are designated as allowed on Swift Reservoir in Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest, year-round, per USFS data.
- Are e-bikes allowed on Swift Reservoir?
- No e-bike class (1, 2 or 3) is designated on Swift Reservoir in the USFS data.
- How long is Swift Reservoir?
- Swift Reservoir measures about 3.1 mi in total, summed across its mapped National Forest System segments.
- What is the surface of Swift Reservoir?
- USFS data records the tread surface of Swift Reservoir as native material.
How we read this data
Grade-based difficulty above is the USFS grade (route steepness), not a technical mountain-bike rating — a gentle-grade trail can still be rocky or technical, and vice versa. Bike and e-bike status come verbatim from the USFS managed-use fields for this trail; we never infer access we can't cite. See our methodology for how the dataset is built and what each field means.
Where it is
Approximate location of Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest (USFS trail geometry isn't mapped).
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