Looking Glass Lake

Drainage: Clarks Fork (MT)
Approaches: No documented trailhead route. Nearest is the Goose Lake Jeep Trail to Rough Lake, 6.5 mi on trail, then about 1.5 mi cross-country southeast · From Unnamed Lake 89a — about 0.15 mi north-northwest

Elevation: 10,282 feet
Fish: Yellowstone cutthroat (FWP)
Coordinates: 45.11034, -109.80980
Bugs: Minimal on our visit

Getting there

No trail reaches Looking Glass. The nearest documented access is the Goose Lake Jeep Trail to Rough Lake, six and a half miles on trail, and from there about a mile and a half southeast across open rock.

We came on a thru hike that started at the Lady of the Lake Trailhead and exited at the Clarks Fork end of the Beaten Path. Two vehicles, one dropped at the exit before we started. Without a shuttle you are walking the whole thing twice.

The hike

Day two was the only day we did not move camp. We left the tents at Splinter and walked a loop up through the high basins, and Looking Glass came about five miles into it with roughly 1,550 feet of climbing behind us.

The route up works through rocky gaps and granite benches, no tread anywhere on it. The lake just below is Unnamed Lake 89a, a tenth of a mile south-southeast and reached about ten minutes earlier, so the two effectively sit together on the same bench.

Looking Glass is 16 acres at 10,282 feet, set in open granite. FWP has no data for it, which means no stocking record rather than a confirmed empty lake.

From here the route carries northwest toward Sky Top and the turning point of the day.

Tips & safety

• Navigation: no maintained path anywhere on this upper shelf. Continuous route finding between lakes, and the benches and gaps make the ground slower than the distances suggest.

• Fishing: Yellowstone cutthroat (FWP)

• Camping: Looking Glass sits at 10,282 feet in open granite, above treeline, so there is no timber, no wind shelter and no firewood. The shoreline is rock. Rough Lake is the nearest water with a known campsite, about a mile and a half northwest. We came through in the afternoon on a day loop without scouting sites, so take this as terrain description rather than a report on what is available.

• Thru hike logistics: this is point to point, not a loop. Your ride has to already be parked at the exit trailhead.