Lily Lake (Clarks Fork WY)

Clarks Fork (WY)
Written By senddevon .

Drainage: Clarks Fork (WY)
Approaches: Drive-up to Lily Lake Campground at the shoreline. Car accessible

Elevation: 7,669 feet
Fish: WYG&F data pending
Coordinates: 44.94733, -109.71182
Bugs: Horseflies on our visit, few mosquitoes

Getting there

You can drive a car to Lily Lake. We took a minivan in without trouble. There are one or two spots where a low-clearance vehicle will want a little care picking a line, but nothing that calls for clearance or four-wheel drive.

Lily Lake Campground sits at the lake, so expect people. That is the trade for the access.

The hike

There isn't one, and this is one of the few lakes in the range where that is the whole appeal rather than a consolation.

Forty-one acres at 7,669 feet, low enough to be comfortable and warm, with a natural boat ramp right at the lake. You can back down, put a kayak in the water, and be paddling in minutes. Most water this size in the Beartooths is a day's walk from a road.

On the far side of the lake there are rocks you can jump from. High enough to be worth doing, not high enough to be a problem.

There are crawdads in the water, which is not something you find in most lakes up here. If you have kids along, that will occupy them longer than anything else at the lake.

Wyoming Game and Fish data has not been pulled for Lily yet.

Tips & safety

  • A minivan makes it. One or two spots ask for a careful line if you are low to the ground. No clearance or four-wheel drive needed.

  • Bring a boat. Forty-one acres and a natural ramp. This is the easiest water in the range to get a kayak onto.

  • The jumping rocks are on the opposite side of the lake from the campground. Reasonable height, nothing extreme. Check your depth before the first jump, as with any lake.

  • Crawdads in the shallows. Worth knowing before someone steps on one barefoot, and worth knowing if you have children who will want to spend the afternoon catching them.

  • Bugs: horseflies were the problem on our visit rather than mosquitoes. Horseflies do not care about most repellent, so long sleeves do more good than spray.

  • It is a campground. You will have neighbors. If you want solitude this is the wrong lake, and that is fine, because almost everything else on this site is the other kind.

  • Camping: Lily Lake Campground sits right at the water with vehicle access, which means real gear rather than pack weight. At 7,669 feet it stays pleasant well into the shoulder seasons.

senddevon .
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Snyder Lake