Rush Lake

Clarks Fork (WY)
Written By Beartooth Echo

Drainage: Clarks Fork (WY)
Approaches: Clay Butte Trailhead, approximately 2.5 mi on the way out from Granite Lake
Elevation: Approximately 8,920 feet
Fish: No WYG&F data
Coordinates: 44.98229, -109.64006
Bugs: Minimal on our visit

Getting there

Rush is the last lake on our walk out and back to Clay Butte. We came at it on day four after two nights basecamped at Granite, passing Poke and then Elk before it.

From Elk it is roughly three quarters of a mile southeast, with about two and a half miles left to the trailhead after that.

The hike

The walk out climbs steadily the whole way. You dropped nine hundred feet getting down into the Granite basin and you pay all of it back before you finish, and Rush comes late enough in that climb that you feel it.

At approximately 8,920 feet the lake sits well below the country you crossed on the way in. By this point the plateau is behind you.

Tips & safety

  • Navigation: the published coordinates for Rush Lake are wrong by a wide margin. Some sources put it more than a mile away and a thousand feet higher, up on the plateau instead of down here on the walk out. If you are navigating to a pin, check it against the ground.

  • Fishing: no WYG&F data. Wyoming has no stocking record and no published survey for Rush Lake.

  • Bugs: minimal on our visit.

Beartooth Echo

A Montana family of five walking to every named lake in the Absaroka-Beartooth. We only write up the ones we've stood at.

https://www.beartoothecho.com
Next

Elk Lake (Clarks Fork, WY)