Scat Lake

Drainage: East Rosebud
Approaches: Approximately 22 miles round trip from the East Rosebud trailhead, with roughly 3,350 feet of climbing. The last 2 miles above Lake at Falls are unmaintained.
Elevation: 9,335 feet
Fish: Golden trout, common and stocked. Montana FWP.
Coordinates: 45.11083, -109.71278
Bugs: Not a problem in August.

Getting there

Everything up to Martin applies here first: Trail #15 to Lake at Falls, the Falls Creek crossing, and the unmaintained climb up the chute.

From Martin we went south to Scat along the west side, which is the side FWP points you to. What FWP does not say is that there are a lot of cliffs over there. We tried to just follow the shoreline and it cliffs out. What worked was going up and over instead, and our track has us at 9,327 feet at the high point, a little over 200 feet above the surface of Martin. The east side is unmanageable.

It is about eight tenths of a mile from our camp at the Martin outlet. We camped at Martin, so we were on day packs. We left at 7:23 in the morning and were on the shore by about 8:20.

The ground rolls more than the map suggests. After that high point we dropped back to 9,203 and went up and down twice more before reaching the lake.

The hike

Scat is small, 7 acres, 45 feet at the deepest and 17 on average. FWP calls it excellent golden trout habitat with a great outlet spawning site, and stocks it with 700 fish in 2012, 700 in 2017 and 700 planned for 2025.

Whether any of them are catchable is an open question. FWP surveyed it in 1990 and again in 1998 and caught nothing either time. Their own notes say they could use angler reports from here. We had nothing rising and caught nothing.

Going on up to Little Scat, we ended up scaling some cliffs right by the water rather than walking around, and came back down the same way. There is a little ridge above Martin on the east side that might drop you off above Little Scat. We talked about it and went back down our own line instead, so that one is untested.

Tips & safety

• Navigation: West side of Martin going south, but above the shoreline, not on it. Following the water cliffs out. Unmaintained the whole way from the Falls Creek crossing.

• Camping: Tough. We might have found something in the scattered timber but nothing stood out, and there was nothing at the lake itself. There may be a spot between Scat and Little Scat. FWP calls the camping near the lake questionable. Firewood is plentiful.

• Fishing: Stocked golden trout on a five-year rotation, never confirmed by FWP sampling in two attempts. Nothing rising for us.

• Bugs: Nothing that stood out.

• The cliffs above the lake: We scaled them right by the water to get up to Little Scat instead of going around, both directions.