Junction Mountain

Trail Overview

Junction Mountain trail starts at a big wooden suspension bridge on FS 250 that takes you across the North Fork of the Clearwater River. It goes into a dense and lush forest as a skinny narrow trail through the pines and overgrown leafy bushes. It's like a rainforest in the beginning. It traverses and side-hills across the mountain sides, with shelfy sections of exposure as it climbs 3,200 feet in 4.5 miles. The beginning hardly has any rock. There's a little wooden bridge across a small creek, then it immediately goes into a tight steep switchback with a boulder on the inside corner, which is one of the harder moves. You can overlook the Kelly Work Station as it gets past a few more switchbacks. This trail has the potential for lots of big logs to be down, unless it's been cut for the season. The forest opens up a bit as you keep climbing, with more views near the top of Junction Mountain, and also the trail widens up for portions near the top, not being so narrow. In the second half the trail starts to have more small pieces of rock in the dirt, and some embedded rock. Near the top it opens up to a beautiful open grassy hillside, and the trail goes through a section of embedded uneven slickrock with tiny ledges and chunky uneven surfaces, followed by some more embedded small boulders. This is a really scenic section, and then it continues to the intersection with Junction Lookout, that will take you up to the summit with a lookout tower. This trail is open 8/1 - 11/15.

Photos of Junction Mountain

Want to see more?

Login

Difficulty

This trail is intermediate difficulty due to lots of narrow shelfy sections of side-hilling that have some exposure, plus some tight switchbacks. The northern half isn't rocky, but the southern half is more rocky with chunky uneven embedded rocks.

Technical Rating