Scout Lake

Drainage: Boulder
Approaches: Approximately 11.5 miles round trip from Pine Creek Campground on Trail #47, with roughly 4,800 feet of climbing. Two hours from a camp at Pine Creek Lake.
Elevation: 9,145 feet
Fish: Fishless, per the Falcon Guide. No FWP data.
Coordinates: 45.48537, -110.44539
Bugs: Nothing that stood out.

Getting there

We came over from a camp at Pine Creek Lake, up and over the ridge at 9,883 feet with mountain goats on top, then down to the McKnight lakes.

Scout sits a quarter mile southeast of Upper McKnight. We walked down to it an hour after reaching the McKnights, three hours out from camp.

Coming straight off the ridge instead, Scout is the closest of the three, about four tenths of a mile east and 740 feet down.

The hike

Scout is small, listed at 3 acres, and Montana FWP has no entry for it, so there is no depth, no acreage of its own and no camping assessment from the state. The Falcon Guide lists it fishless, and that is the only fish information anyone has published.

We saw two black bears here. Between that and the dense timber below, we gave up on the idea of dropping down to Davis Lake, which we had been looking at from the bench above.

Tips & safety

• Navigation: Over the ridge east from Pine Creek Lake at 9,883 feet. Scout is the first of the three lakes you reach coming down, and a quarter mile southeast of Upper McKnight. No trail.

• Camping: No FWP assessment and we did not scout it. The McKnight lakes a quarter mile northwest have the camping FWP calls good.

• Fishing: Listed fishless in the Falcon Guide. No FWP data.

• Bugs: Nothing that stood out.

• Bears: We saw two black bears at this lake.