Falls Creek Lake

Drainage: East Rosebud
Approaches: Approximately 24 miles round trip from the East Rosebud trailhead, with roughly 4,000 feet of climbing. No trail above Lake at Falls.
Elevation: 9,947 feet
Fish: No FWP data.
Coordinates: 45.10109, -109.71196
Bugs: Not a problem in August.

Getting there

Everything up to Little Scat applies here first.

From Little Scat we walked straight up the creek. It is about eight tenths of a mile and around 650 feet of climbing, and it took us an hour and twenty-five minutes. In late August we were able to walk on the snowbanks for most of it, which will not be true every year.

We left camp at Martin at 7:23 and were at Falls Creek Lake by ten, on day packs.

The hike

This lake is close to undocumented. Montana FWP has no entry for it, so there is no acreage, no depth, no fish data and no camping assessment from the state. The Falcon Guide's chapter map for this section shows it as an unnamed lake. Only GNIS carries the name, and it puts the lake at 9,947 feet and 3.7 acres. Our track read 9,925 feet at the shore, which is close enough to trust the rest.

It is also the first lake in this chain the state has never stocked, which puts it in different company than Martin, Scat and Little Scat below it.

We are above treeline here. The shore is rock, and there was still snow lying against the water in late August. We stopped going up at ten in the morning and again coming back at half past twelve.

Tips & safety

• Navigation: No trail from the Falls Creek crossing on. Above Martin's west shoreline, past Scat, over the cliffs to Little Scat, then straight up the creek.

• Camping: None here. We are above treeline with rocky shores, and the same goes for everything above this lake. Martin is the last place in this chain we found good campsites.

• Fishing: No FWP data. We did not fish it.

• Bugs: Nothing that stood out.

• Snow: We walked most of the creek route on snowbanks.