Jackpot Meadow Hike

9.5 miles of hiking • 1500' elevation gain •

We haven't been on this trail for years, and decided to head out and see Jackpot Meadows! There's several trees across the trail but nothing that would slow you down. It would be nice if a trail cleanup crew could look into improving this trail, especially past Jackpot Meadows.

The trail descends down to the Salmon River where there is a well built bridge allowing you to cross. The next portion of the trail climbs about 500ft and then becomes more level. A beautiful stream setting is there to await you, where crossing is easy. The trail gently ascends from here and then levels out before Jackpot Meadows. You'll need to cross a short swampy area that drains from the meadow, but there are rocks to hop most of the way. We didn't get our feet. Jackpot Meadows is surrounded by a waterway, and we didn't try to cross it to get to the actual meadow. The meadow is quite beautiful and the grasses are just starting to emerge!

Our intention was to take the Jackpot Meadows trail all the way to the PCT intersection. However, the trail south of NF-58 has been completely abandoned and is a pain to follow! The trail is covered with a huge number of branches and is a tripping and ankle twisting hazard! This area is also one big mess and looks like a fire hazard. The selective logging here has made a mess of this area, and it would need significant cleanup to be usable!

For some reason I thought we were on the wrong trail, because of the impassibility, and we walked east on NF-58 to get to another trail I had loaded onto our gps. It was about .5 miles away and turned out to be the PCT! I knew we couldn't take this back to our car so we just walked back west on NF-58 and headed north on the Jackpot Meadows trail.

What an excellent warm sunny day on the trail, with no other hikers seen all day!! We were the only car at the TH and so the Salmon River trail must have also been devoid of hikers (Jackpot Meadows and Salmon River trail are at the same parking area).