Silt Lakes
Drainage: Rock Creek
Approaches: West Fork Rock Creek Trailhead — 10.5 mi to Lower, all on trail; 2,100 ft up, 160 ft down · Upper Silt — 11 mi, all on trail · From Shadow Lake — about 0.8 mi southwest to Lower
Elevation: 9,794 feet (Lower), 9,988 feet (Upper)
Fish: Yellowstone cutthroat, both lakes (FWP)
Coordinates: 45.09642, -109.59623 (Lower) · 45.09611, -109.60193 (Upper)
Bugs: Minimal on our visit
Getting there
West Fork Rock Creek Trailhead. Drive past the campgrounds along the gravel access road to the main parking area.
These are the exception in this basin. Everything above them is off trail, some of it steeply so. The Silt Lakes sit on maintained trail the entire way, ten and a half miles to Lower and eleven to Upper, with 2,100 feet of climbing spread over that distance. Long, but no route finding.
The hike
Follow the main trail up the canyon past Sundance Lake. The trail carries on to Lower Silt and then another quarter mile west to Upper.
The two sit close together on the upper drainage floor, about three tenths of a mile apart with Upper roughly 200 feet above Lower. Both are small, 2.7 and 2.2 acres, and both hold Yellowstone cutthroat.
We reached them on the last morning of a four day trip, walking out from a camp at Shadow Lake about eight tenths of a mile northeast, then turning back east past camp and down the canyon to the trailhead.
Tips & safety
The easy way into this basin: if you want the upper country without the off-trail work, the Silt Lakes are as far as maintained trail goes. Everything above them, Ship, Bowback, Triangle, Kookoo and Marker, is open rock and route finding.
Fishing: FWP lists Yellowstone cutthroat in both lakes.
Camping: the Silt Lakes sit on a flat stretch of the upper drainage floor, which makes for a workable staging camp before or after the passes above. Shadow Lake, eight tenths of a mile northeast, is where we actually camped and it worked well for reaching the whole upper basin. Both sit near the upper limit of shelter in this canyon.
