Hidden Lake (Clarks Fork, MT)

Drainage: Clarks Fork (MT)
Approaches: Clay Butte Trailhead, approximately 15 mi round trip; roughly 3,200 ft of climbing along the way. On trail the whole way · From Muddy Creek, approximately 8.5 mi with roughly 1,400 ft of climbing
Elevation: 9,614 feet
Fish: Yellowstone cutthroat (FWP)
Coordinates: 45.00619, -109.62549
Bugs: Minimal on our visit

Getting there

The Clay Butte Trailhead sits off US 212 west of the Beartooth Lake turnoff, up the gravel Clay Butte Road toward the lookout tower. The signed trailhead is on the left just before a hairpin switchback, at approximately 9,555 feet.

The trail drops roughly 345 feet over the first mile and a half, climbs north past Native Lake at about three miles, through the small lakes beyond, then up onto the shelf past Lonesome, Abandoned and Gus. Hidden comes at approximately seven and a half miles, dropping back down off the high ground.

FWP also lists a route from Muddy Creek at roughly eight and a half miles, on trail the whole way.

The hike

Approximately seven and a half miles from Clay Butte with roughly 3,200 feet of climbing along the way. That is a long first day with packs, and we got in late in the afternoon.

The drop off the shelf is what makes this lake worth the walk. Everything from Lonesome through Gus sits above ten thousand feet on bare rock with no shelter anywhere. Hidden sits about four hundred feet lower, back down among stunted timber, with granite slabs running to the shoreline and real trees to camp under.

Around eighteen acres at 9,614 feet, running about forty-six feet at the deepest. Thiel is roughly a mile east and Granite Lake sits west.

Tips & safety

• Navigation: cliffs on the side of Hidden block the way out. You can go up and over, or through the water at the base. We took the water. It runs knee-deep in places and the rock underfoot is slick the whole way. FWP notes the lake is east of Granite and that the trail is found from Thiel.

• Camping: FWP calls camping good at both ends of the lake with plenty of firewood, and that matches what we found. After four lakes above timberline with no shelter at all, this is the first place on the route where you can get out of the wind and under trees. We spent our first night here on the close to the inlet on the northeast side. There is also good camping along the outlet of the lake.

• Fishing: Yellowstone cutthroat (FWP), abundant and self-sustaining, with good spawning habitat in the inlet stream. Brook trout were planted here in 1937 and did not hold. The 2018 survey was taken by angling and caught twenty-seven cutthroat averaging just under nine inches, the largest close to thirteen. A 2009 survey found similar fish averaging under ten.

• Bugs: minimal on our visit.