Lake McKnight

Drainage: Boulder
Approaches: Approximately 12 miles round trip from Pine Creek Campground on Trail #47, with roughly 4,850 feet of climbing. Two hours from a camp at Pine Creek Lake.
Elevation: 9,181 feet
Fish: Golden trout, common and self-sustaining. Montana FWP.
Coordinates: 45.49057, -110.44325
Bugs: Nothing that stood out.

Getting there

We came over from a camp at Pine Creek Lake, which is the short way in and still not short.

From the east shore of Pine Creek Lake it is a bit over half a mile east and 851 feet up to the ridge at 9,883 feet. That took us an hour. We had mountain goats on the ridge.

From the top it is another two thirds of a mile northeast and 700 feet down, and that took another hour. Two hours from camp to the water.

FWP gives two ways in. Pine Creek Trail #47 at 6 miles with 4,849 up and 1,300 down, which is what we did. Or Davis Creek Trail #38 up the West Boulder at 9.5 miles with 4,283 up, following a tributary north of the lakes and then swinging south. They call that one tough cross-country hiking.

The hike

FWP's own write-up says Lake McKnight and Upper McKnight are beautiful, isolated and hard to get to, which is a more enthusiastic sentence than the state usually writes.

It is 10.8 acres and 60 feet at the deepest, with a 16-foot average.

The golden trout are the reason to make the walk. FWP netted 15 here overnight in 2017 averaging 11.9 inches with the largest at 18.8, and 71 in 2009 averaging 12.5. It was stocked in 1992 and again in 2005, and the population is now self-sustaining, so no more plants are planned.

There are a couple of really nice camp spots with some firewood, which makes this the only lake in the cluster the state calls good camping.

Upper McKnight sits a quarter mile southwest, close enough that you can see both from one spot on the bench between them. From up here you can also see Davis Lake off in the distance, down the drainage to the northeast. We thought about walking down to it and decided against it.

Tips & safety

• Navigation: Over the ridge east from Pine Creek Lake at 9,883 feet, then northeast down to the water. No trail on that crossing. The Davis Creek approach is longer and FWP calls it tough cross-country.

• Camping: A couple of really nice spots with some firewood, per FWP.

• Fishing: Self-sustaining golden trout averaging around 12 inches with fish approaching 19 in FWP's nets. No stocking since 2005.

• Bugs: Nothing that stood out.

• Goats: We saw mountain goats on the ridge above the lake.

• Davis Lake: Visible from here, down the drainage northeast. We looked at it and turned it down.