Stepping Stone Lake

Drainage: Clarks Fork (MT)
Approaches: No documented trailhead route. Nearest is the Goose Lake Jeep Trail to Production Lake, 6.5 mi with the last 1.5 mi off-trail, then about 0.78 mi east-northeast

Elevation: 10,305 feet
Fish: No FWP data
Coordinates: 45.10550, -109.82570
Bugs: Minimal on our visit

Getting there

No trail reaches Stepping Stone. The nearest documented access is the Goose Lake Jeep Trail to Production Lake, six and a half miles with the last mile and a half off trail, and from there about three quarters of a mile east-northeast.

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 Stepping Stone came about two and a half hours in with almost exactly 1,000 feet of climbing behind us.

From Production it is three quarters of a mile east-northeast and about 260 feet up. Once you are past the cliff bands around the lower lakes the grade eases, and the last of it is boulder fields and granite benches rather than climbing. The trail vanished a long way below this. You pick your line and read the ground.

Stepping Stone is 13.8 acres at 10,305 feet, which makes it both the largest and the highest water on this leg of the loop until Sky Top. FWP has no data for it, which means no stocking record rather than a confirmed empty lake.

From here the route drops three quarters of a mile south-southeast to No Bones, losing about 300 feet, which is the biggest descent of the day.

Tips & safety

• Navigation: the trail is long gone at this elevation. Boulder fields and granite benches, and you rely on map reading to pick your line across them.

• Fishing: FWP has no data for this lake. That is an absence of record, not a statement that it holds nothing.

• Camping: Stepping Stone sits at 10,305 feet on open granite well above treeline, so there is no timber, no wind shelter and no firewood. The shoreline is rock and boulder field. At nearly 14 acres it is large enough to build its own weather, and it is the highest water on this bench short of Sky Top. We came through at midday on a day loop without scouting sites, so take this as terrain description rather than a report on what is available.

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