Today’s trip was one that I’ve had on my todo list for a while now. I decided to head up and see what the Jackpot Meadows trail was like. This trail was part of the Skyline trail in the late 30’s thru the 50’s I think. It is near where we were planning to camp last weekend, but cancelled due to the weather (and seeing what the conditions were, I’m really glad we cancelled!).

It was just Thor and I for the day so we started out at our convenience – but we ended up leaving about our normal time. While we were driving to the trailhead I was getting a little concerned about the weather. The weather report said it was going to be cool and cloudy but no rain. The clouds on the way to the trailhead were telling a different story. I was hoping things would clear up as we headed further east and thankfully, they did – sort of. The dark clouds turned to lighter clouds but as we drove higher we ended up getting INTO the clouds – or just below them. At least it wasn’t raining!

We drove up the 240 spur and almost immediately after we turned onto the “primitive” section of the 240 spur (the one that heads down to Linney Creek campground), we got to the “trailhead” for the Jackpot Meadows trail. There is kind of a spot to pull off the road and park – I was able to get fully off the road while only slighly blocking the southbound section of the trail:

We suited up in full raingear (due to the wet brush) and headed out. I was surprised to see the truck said it was only 43 degrees – it is almost July! The plan was to head north down to the Salmon River and go as far as we could and then turn around and head south down to the end where it meets the PCT and then turn around and come back. We headed north, passing this very old sign on the north side of the 58-240 spur road:

The trail in the beginning wasn’t too bad, but it had intermittent brushy spots, but nothing too crazy. Here is a typical section of this part of the trail:

We went a little farther and we got to a very pretty un-named creek crossing – this is from the outflow of Jackpot Meadows and feeds into the Salmon River

Somewhere after this creek crossing, the trail condition seemed to improve a bit. It still had intermittent brushy areas, but they seemed to be fewer and farther between. The tread also seemed a bit wider. The trail was relatively flat for a while until we arrived at a series of switchbacks. This is a segment as we were heading down to the Salmon River:

I wasn’t sure what we’d find at the Salmon River. I wasn’t sure if there was a bridge or not. I knew if there was no bridge we would be turning around as I was not prepared to ford the Salmon River this time of year.

When we got to the river, the trail kind of parallels the river for a bit and then comes to a bridge (which kind of surprised me, given the light usage of this trail). Unfortunately, the bridge was heavily damaged – most likely in the high water event last winter:

I think I probably could have made it over the bridge, being careful, but Thor does not like to cross bridges usually (he usually opts to go thru the water) – I did not want him to try and swim the river so we decided we would turn around at this point. As we were walking back, I took a picture of the Salmon river beside the trail:

And not too far from the bridge was what looked like an old campsite:

We headed back up the switchbacks – at one point there was a really nice rockslide – it was rather brushy in this area (partially due to all the brush being really wet), but it was still pretty cool:

We continued up the trail and it wasn’t too long before we got back to the truck. It was almost noon, so I thought it was a good time to stop for lunch. We ate a quick lunch – while we were eating I noticed this really strange old metal piece next to the road near where the trail crossed – I have no idea what this was, but it was an interesting artifact:

After packing up, we headed south from the 240 spur. This segment of the trail was even more intermittent than the northern section – some parts were in excellent condition with recently cut out logs and other areas were pretty rough. It wasn’t too far from where we parked when we came to an interesting spot where the trail crosses the outflow of Jackpot meadows. You can’t really see much in this picture but it looks like they placed a series of rocks to allow a rock hop over the outlet – today, all you could see was green brush:

A little farther up the trail I found a spot to go out and get a picture of Jackpot Meadows – it is a little like Squaw Meadows – there is braided water running thru it, but unlike Squaw Meadows it isn’t filled with peat. If you can navigate the braided water channels it is pretty easy to navigate – we went partway out into the meadow and got this picture of it:

After checking out the meadow, we headed back to the trail – a bit farther down the trail I found there was actually a side trail to the meadow – if I had been patient, I could have gotten out to the meadow a bit easier. 😂

Continuing down the trail, it shortly crosses the 241 spur – a very apparent and fully signed crossing:

A bit further down the trail I was surprised to see a reflector sign next to the trail – I thought these were for snowmobiles in the winter?

We continued down the trail and soon got to the spot where the trail crosses the 58 road – not where the map shows it, but a bit west of where the map shows – when we drove in, I was looking for the crossing where the map showed it but did not see it – this crossing is again very apparent and fully signed:

Shortly after crossing the 58 road, the trail takes a hard turn to the east, skirting Basin Point. After that, it turns back to the south and heads down to where it meets the PCT. The spot where it meets the PCT is a bit north of where the map shows. This is what the junction looks like – again, well signed:

Since we had been fighting downed trees and wet brush all day long, I decided we’d head back on the PCT and once we got to where it crosses the 240 spur, we would walk that back to the truck. I would be significantly easier than the way we came. We headed back north on the PCT and really enjoyed the clear spots on the trail. We saw quite a bit of recent trail work had been done. It seems as though the PCT is ready for the herd this year – at least in this area.

We soon got back to the 240 spur and started walking north. I had brought my drone and was thinking of heading back over to fly over Jackpot and Dry Meadows but I wasn’t really looking forward to fighting all the downed logs again. I then realized I could take off from the 240 spur and fly over to both meadows. I did, but I don’t think the videos were very good – it was pretty foggy up in the air. I will post them here when I get them processed – TBD

We soon arrived back at the truck. We packed up and headed back out. I was surprised to see my truck said it was still only 44 degrees – it had only warmed up 1 degree all day. I looked at the One other thing I was hoping to do before we headed home was to go check out Frying Pan Lake – I’ve never driven on any of these roads before so I wasn’t sure whether they were even passable – it looked like we could take the 241 spur over to Frying Pan Lake. We headed out and turned west on the 241 spur – it got a bit narrow in places and there were a few rather large mud pits but we did make it to Frying Pan Lake. There is a pretty nice campsite next to the road. We pulled in there and I walked out a bit to go look at Frying Pan Lake:

I think I probably needed to walk thru all that brush in order to see the lake proper. It was late, it was cold and foggy and I was tired – so the view I got was good enough for today – it looked interesting enough to go back and explore on a better day.

I looked at the map and it looked like it was possible to continue down the road and get out onto another spur that connected to road 58. The end showed it was gated but it wasn’t very far and I thought it was worth a shot. The road got a bit rougher and there were some even larger mud pits, but I soon got out to the 5880 road – which was PAVED! Thankfully the road was not gated and we got out to road 58 and started our way home.

It was an interesting day on an interesting old trail. Even though it is out of the Clackamas District, it feels like it would be a good trail to do some work on. It is historic and interesting, even though it doesn’t have any significant scenery. I can truthfully say I will be back to do more exploring on this trail. A nice day in the woods.