Recruitment Lake
Drainage: Clarks Fork (MT)
Approaches: No documented trailhead route. Nearest is the Goose Lake Jeep Trail to Pneumonia Lake, 5.5 mi with the last half mile off-trail, then about 0.32 mi east-northeast · From Paddle Lake — about 0.12 mi northwest
Elevation: 10,145 feet
Fish: Brook trout (FWP)
Coordinates: 45.09915, -109.83756
Bugs: Minimal on our visit
Getting there
No trail reaches Recruitment. The nearest documented access is the Goose Lake Jeep Trail to Pneumonia Lake, five and a half miles with the last half mile off trail, and from there about a third of a mile east-northeast up onto the shelf.
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. Recruitment came a little over an hour in with about 650 feet of climbing behind us.
Once you gain the shelf at Pneumonia the walking turns easy. Recruitment sits on the plateau with Paddle an eighth of a mile southeast and Production about a third of a mile northeast. At 12.6 acres Recruitment is by far the largest of the three, several times the size of either of the others.
Tips & safety
The gap, and the cliff past it: you can walk directly between Paddle and Recruitment, even though the gap does not look promising when you are hiking it. Head back toward Recruitment immediately after going through. If you carry on instead, you come out on the edge of a 100 foot cliff above Production.
Fishing: If you end up on the cliff side above Production, there is no getting a line down to that water from there.
Navigation: no maintained path on this shelf. Three lakes this close together make for easy walking and easy mistakes about which one you are looking at.
Camping: Recruitment sits at 10,146 feet on the open shelf, above treeline, so no timber, no wind shelter and no firewood. The ground is rock. At 12.6 acres it has far more shoreline to work with than Paddle or Production, and it is the only one of the three big enough to give you real choice about where to sit. We came through in the late morning 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.
