Raven Lake

Drainage: Stillwater
Approaches: Approximately 36 miles round trip from the Box Canyon trailhead, with roughly 3,300 feet of climbing.
Elevation: 8,994 feet
Fish: Cutthroat and rainbow hybrids, common and self-sustaining. Montana FWP.
Coordinates: 45.28826, -110.05392
Bugs: Mosquitoes, just bad enough to be annoying.

Getting there

The plateau is the way in. FWP's line is to follow a poor trail from Wounded Man past Pinchot. The lake sits in the Flood Creek drainage but do not come up it — the state calls that drainage basically impassable, and their own summary of Raven is that access is long and difficult.

Box Canyon is 18 miles, West Stillwater 20.

We walked past it on the way from Dreary to a camp at Lake Surrender, about four hours out from Dreary.

The hike

Raven is 10 acres and 46 feet at the deepest, which makes it one of the deeper lakes up here for its size.

The fish are the most mixed-up population on the plateau. FWP's 2018 sample was nine fish they classed as golden crossed with rainbow crossed with cutthroat, averaging 10.3 inches. Back in 1997 they separated them out and got both cutthroat-golden and rainbow-golden crosses in the same lake. Their one-word summary is colorful hybrids.

That 2018 sample came from a hook and line, not a net.

There are nice campsites with plenty of firewood.

Tips & safety

• Navigation: From Wounded Man, a poor trail past Pinchot. Do not come up Flood Creek.

• Camping: Nice sites with plenty of firewood.

• Fishing: Colorful three-way hybrids around 10 inches. FWP caught theirs on a rod.

• Bugs: Mosquitoes, annoying rather than bad.