Cirque Lake

Drainage: Stillwater
Approaches: Approximately 29 miles round trip from the Box Canyon trailhead, with roughly 3,500 feet of climbing. Off trail from Jordan.
Elevation: 9,024 feet
Fish: No FWP data.
Coordinates: 45.23732, -110.08513
Bugs: Mosquitoes, just bad enough to be annoying.

Getting there

Everything to Jordan applies here first, on trail the whole way from Box Canyon over Columbine Pass.

Cirque sits four tenths of a mile west of Jordan and about 100 feet higher. We dropped our packs at Jordan and walked up without them, which is the sensible way to do it.

It took us about fifteen minutes each way from where we left the packs, and we were back to them a bit over an hour later.

The hike

Cirque is small, 4.7 acres at 9,024 feet.

Montana FWP has no entry for it, so there is no depth, no acreage of their own, no fish record and no camping assessment. Nobody has published anything about this lake.

It is a short side trip off a lake that is already on trail, which makes it one of the cheapest additions on this whole plateau.

Tips & safety

• Navigation: Off trail from Jordan, four tenths of a mile west. Jordan is the place to leave your packs.

• Camping: We were up and back inside an hour and did not scout it. Jordan has campsites along its east shore with plenty of firewood.

• Fishing: No FWP data.

• Bugs: Mosquitoes, annoying rather than bad.