Rough Lake

Drainage: Clarks Fork (MT)
Approaches: Goose Lake Jeep Trail — 6.5 mi, all on trail; 1,600 ft up, 600 ft down · Lady of the Lake — 8 mi · From Sky Top Lakes — about 0.9 mi west-southwest, cross-country

Elevation: 10,191 feet
Fish: Brook trout (FWP)
Coordinates: 45.12041, -109.82673
Bugs: Minimal on our visit

Getting there

Rough is the exception up here. The Goose Lake Jeep Trail reaches it in six and a half miles, all on trail, with 1,600 feet of climbing and 600 feet of descent. Lady of the Lake gets there in eight. Every other lake on this shelf requires leaving the trail. Rough does not.

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 Rough sat on the far side of it.

Coming across from Looking Glass took about an hour. From Sky Top it is nine tenths of a mile west-southwest, dropping 200 feet off the upper chain. The route works down out of the eastern crags and the lake sits in open granite at 10,191 feet, above the last of the timber.

At just over 90 acres Rough is by far the largest water on this shelf, big enough that it reads as the anchor of the basin rather than another pocket in it. FWP lists brook trout, and the grayling that were planted in Sky Top in 1955 are thought to have drifted down into here.

Tips & safety

• Camping: there is a good site on the southwest side of the lake, with some flat ground near the inlet. That makes Rough the one place on this shelf worth planning a camp around. It is above treeline, so there is no firewood and no wind shelter, and you should expect an exposed night on open rock even at the good spot.

• Fishing: FWP lists brook trout. Rough is the likely beneficiary of the 1955 grayling plant in the Sky Top basin above, which surveys suggest drifted downstream into this lake.

• Navigation: the trail reaches Rough, but nothing past it. Sky Top, Lone Elk and the rest of the shelf are all route finding across open rock.

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