Upper Sheepherder Lake

Drainage: Clarks Fork (WY)
Approaches: A loop of roughly three hours takes in both Sheepherder lakes, from the end of a short dirt road between Long Lake and Little Bear Lake off the Beartooth Highway. Upper Sheepherder is about an hour and a half in.
Elevation: 9,895 feet
Fish: No WYG&F data.
Coordinates: 44.96869, -109.51554
Bugs: Some mosquitoes.

Getting there

The trailhead is at the end of a short dirt road that leaves the highway between Long Lake and Little Bear Lake. It is a use trail rather than a maintained one.

You cross Bear Creek on the way in and there is no bridge, so figure on wet feet or a change of footwear depending on the year and the time of season.

Lower Sheepherder comes first, about forty minutes from the car. Upper is another fifty minutes on from there, four tenths of a mile northwest and about 95 feet higher. We were at the car at twenty past two and up here by ten to four.

The hike

Upper Sheepherder is the bigger of the two at just under 24 acres, and it drains down into Lower.

This is the lake GNIS labels simply Sheepherder Lake, which is worth knowing if you are working off a map that only shows one name up here. There are two lakes, and this is the upper.

Wyoming Game and Fish has no stocking record for it, so there is nothing published about what is in it.

Tips & safety

• Navigation: Use trail from the dirt road, not a maintained one. The Bear Creek crossing has no bridge. Most maps label only one Sheepherder Lake and it is this one.

• Camping: We walked this as a day loop and did not scout camping, so there is nothing here worth calling a site report.

• Fishing: No WYG&F data.

• Bugs: Some mosquitoes.