Granite Lake
Drainage: Clarks Fork (MT and WY)
Approaches: Clay Butte Trailhead, approximately 5 mi on trail; roughly 900 ft down · Muddy Creek Trail, approximately 7 mi on trail; roughly 540 ft up
Elevation: 8,781 feet
Fish: Brook trout, rainbow trout, Yellowstone cutthroat (FWP)
Coordinates: 45.00425, -109.66604
Bugs: Minimal on our visit
Getting there
FWP lists Granite at approximately five miles from Clay Butte with nine hundred feet of descent and nothing to climb, or seven miles up the Muddy Creek Trail with about five hundred and forty feet of gain. Either one is a straightforward way in.
We came the long way around. Day one out of Clay Butte ran approximately seven and a half miles over the plateau to Hidden Lake, where we camped. Day two started by getting around the cliffs on the side of Hidden. You can climb up and over them or go through the water at their base, and we took the water. It runs knee-deep in places and the rock underfoot is slick the whole way. One of us went in up to his waist. From there it was west to Thiel, down past Teardrop, and on down to Granite, putting us at the lake around twelve miles in.
The hike
Everything from Thiel down is descent. You lose about six hundred and fifty feet across the last two miles and the walking gets easier the whole way.
Granite is a different scale from anything else up here. Two hundred and twenty-eight acres and a hundred and twenty-five feet deep, straddling the Montana and Wyoming line, in country where a big lake is thirty acres and a deep one is forty feet. After two days of small shallow water it feels like arriving somewhere.
We stayed two nights and used it as a basecamp. That is the right way to do this country. From here Spaghetti and Skeeter are a day-pack afternoon to the west, and Burnt Bacon is a short trip northeast.
Huckleberries all around the lake.
Near where we camped there is a good rock to jump off into the water, which after twelve miles is worth more than it sounds.
Tips & safety
Navigation: on trail from either direction.
Camping: FWP calls the campsites here excellent with good firewood, and that matches what we found. There is a lot of camping around the outlet in particular. We camped near the inlet and stayed two nights.
Berries: huckleberries all around the lake.
Fishing: brook trout abundant, rainbow common, Yellowstone cutthroat rare, all self-sustaining. Worth reading FWP's own caveat: this lake is too big for them to sample properly, and they say their 2019 numbers almost certainly understate what is in there. The fish they did find ran nine inches for brookies and twelve for rainbows, with the largest rainbow near fourteen. At a hundred and twenty-five feet deep there is a lot of water they are not reaching.
Park Rapids: the waterfall shows on the FWP map and we went looking for it. It is the one thing on this whole route we would tell you to skip. The walk in and out was miserable in both directions for a rapid that did not justify it, and there are better unnamed rapids you will pass without going out of your way.
Bugs: minimal on our visit.
