Beauty Lake (Stillwater)

Drainage: Stillwater
Approaches: Goose Lake Jeep Trail — 4 mi, all off-trail; 500 ft up, 1,100 ft down · From Anvil Lake — about 0.55 mi northwest · From Lake Aries — about 0.5 mi south-southwest

Elevation: 9,358 feet
Fish: Yellowstone cutthroat (FWP)
Coordinates: 45.10583, -109.97032
Bugs: Minimal on our visit

Getting there

Getting to the start is half the trip. The Goose Lake Jeep Trail is rough enough that you need an ATV, an off-road buggy or a genuinely capable off-road vehicle. Nothing standard will make it.

Your driving ends at the turnaround near the Goose Creek waterfall, which is where you park and shoulder packs. Just before the trail ends near the falls, look for a hard right that points you north. That is where the walking starts.

Park with the marten in mind. They are active in this basin and they chew wires and cables underneath parked machines. This is a real risk to your ride home, not a nuisance.

From the turnaround it is four miles to Beauty, all of it off trail, with 500 feet of climbing and 1,100 feet of descent.

The hike

Beauty sits about half a mile northwest of Anvil, and crossing the drainage between them is easy walking by the standards of this basin.

It is a waypoint as much as a destination. Past Beauty the ground pitches up hard for the climb to the bench where Lake Aries sits, half a mile north-northeast and about 190 feet higher. Beauty is the last easy ground before that.

Beauty is 7.4 acres at 9,358 feet, and it is the lowest lake in this cluster. FWP lists Yellowstone cutthroat.

Tips & safety

• Everything past Wall Lake is unmaintained. No tread anywhere around Beauty or on the climb above it. You are route finding the whole way.

• The climb past Beauty is the hard part, not the walk to it.

• Weather: high country with nothing to break a front. Come prepared for sustained cold rain or a storm that arrives fast.

• Fishing: FWP lists Yellowstone cutthroat.

• Camping: Beauty sits at 9,358 feet, the lowest water in this cluster, which makes it the most sheltered ground up here. At 7.4 acres there is a reasonable amount of shoreline. Anything higher, Aries, Sourdough, Spider or Fly, is more exposed.