This long day hike to Russell, Ouzel, Skull and Fizzle Lakes starts at the Clark’s Fork trailhead about 3 to 4 miles E of Cooke City, in southern Montana along Beartooth Highway No. 212. The short gravel access road to the trailhead is on the N side of the highway, just slightly SE of the entrance to the Chief Joseph campground on the S side of the highway. Very close to the trailhead, the trail crosses the Clark’s Fork of the Yellowstone River above a waterfall (there is a short side trail to a viewing platform).
The Clark’s Fork trailhead is at 8,000 feet elevation. Lupe took the trail on to Russell Lake (8,372 feet), Ouzel Lake (9,400+ feet), Skull Lake (9,660 feet), and Fizzle Lake (9,818 feet). She saw other lakes along the way too, although she never did make it to Fossil Lake, her main objective, due to SPHP’s map reading error.
After a long day the previous day going to Frozen Lake, Lake Promise, Heart Lake and several other alpine lakes in the Beartooths, SPHP thought that Lupe should just try a relatively easy short trek on July 15, 2013. Lupe and SPHP could then spend a pleasant restful late afternoon and evening back at their favorite campsite on the Clark’s Fork of the Yellowstone River.
In August of 2012, Lupe and SPHP had gone to Kersey Lake with Lanis on Lupe’s first ever big summer Dingo Vacation. The trail to Kersey Lake almost immediately crosses the Clark’s Fork of the Yellowstone River, but is otherwise a pretty ordinary stroll through the forest the rest of the way to Kersey Lake. Today though, SPHP thought Lupe might go further. Rock Island, Fox, Widewater and Big Moose Lakes were all possible destinations.
So on the morning of 7-15-13, Lupe and SPHP set out from the Clark’s Fork Trailhead. Lupe crossed the Clark Fork’s of the Yellowstone River and followed the trail to Kersey Lake. The S side of Kersey Lake is set in a dense forest. Although the trail passes fairly close to the lake, there weren’t many good views of it from the trail. Soon Lupe and SPHP were beyond Kersey Lake.
Well before reaching the turn-off for the trails to the other lakes SPHP had in mind as destinations, Lupe and SPHP met up with a young couple heading in the opposite direction. They were going towards Kersey Lake. SPHP asked them where they were headed. They replied that they had just spent 4 days coming over from East Rosebud, which seems to be a very popular backpacking start or end point. They were headed for the Clark’s Fork trailhead, so their trip was nearly done.
SPHP asked them what part of the trip they had liked the best. They said the top of the world around Windy Lake and Fossil Lake. Around Windy Lake the sky had been beautiful with rainbows in addition to the great alpine views.
SPHP is a total sucker for the high country. Lupe loves it too. After the young couple went on, SPHP took a quick check of the map. (SPHP didn’t even have a topo map of this area – just a map of the general area for tourists Lanis picked up in August, 2012 at the visitor center in Cooke City.)
The map showed Fossil Lake and a trail going to it. Furthermore, Fossil Lake was on the edge of being close enough to where Lupe and SPHP might just be able to make it there and back as a very long day hike. All thoughts of a short day and restful evening in camp evaporated. Fossil Lake was Lupe’s new destination!
SPHP had seen from a high point S of Kersey Lake a large canyon off to the NE heading N into the high country. This had to be the route to Fossil Lake. SPHP knew it would be uphill all the way, but thought it was worth a try. When Lupe came to the junction of the trails to Big Moose Lake and Russell Creek, Lupe and SPHP chose Russell Creek.
Lupe was passing through a nice forest. There were mosquitoes, but they weren’t bad. It was a pretty easy stroll for a while, since the trail wasn’t climbing very fast. Lupe passed another trail to Fox Lake, but stayed on the Russell Creek trail. It was definitely heading for the big canyon. A little while after passing the Fox Lake trail, Lupe reached Russell Creek.
From then on the trail started climbing more and more steeply as Lupe followed Russell Creek up the big canyon. In places there were switchbacks. Eventually Lupe reached a bridge downstream from a nice waterfall. There were some big smooth rocks there. Lupe and SPHP took a break. There didn’t seem to be any mosquitoes at all here. Just above the waterfall was a lake (unnamed, but shown on the visitor guide map). SPHP learned weeks later, this was Russell Lake. It was very beautiful. Russell Lake is set deep in the canyon with high thinly forested rock walls around most of it.
Somewhere along the E side of Russell Lake there was supposed to be another trail leading E to Mariane Lake. SPHP was watching for it, but never saw it. Lupe wasn’t going there anyway.
N of Russell Lake the trail climbed very steeply with many switchbacks. Lupe came to some beautiful meadows, marshes and ponds set deep in the canyon. Russell Creek, or some fork of it, ran through it all too. After climbing lots of switchbacks, Lupe reached Ouzel Lake – another pretty, but smaller lake shown on the map. From here the trail turned W. Lupe and SPHP started encountering more alpine terrain, and unfortunately lots more mosquitoes. Lupe soon came to a place with a very nice view of the creek flowing down gently from the W in a narrow part of the canyon.
There was no bridge across the creek here, so Lupe and SPHP had to ford it. SPHP made the mistake of taking socks and boots off to ford the creek barefooted. That greatly slowed SPHP’s progress across the slippery stones on the creek bottom. The mosquitoes were delighted. SPHP was eaten alive while making the creek crossing. Lupe was also being plagued by the “bad bugs” waiting for SPHP to hurry up and get across.
The trail went W following the S shore of the creek. Soon Lupe was at another lake. This lake was larger than Ouzel Lake, but not shown on the visitor guide map, which had at least shown Ouzel Lake as a little blue do. As it turns out, this lake is unnamed even on the Peakbagger.com topo map. The trail continued W above the S shore of the unnamed lake.
Once past the unnamed lake, the trail turned N. Before long Skull Lake came into view (also not shown on the visitor guide map). Skull Lake was larger than Ouzel Lake, but smaller than the unnamed lake. Lupe followed the trail N along the W shore of Skull Lake.
N of Skull Lake, Lupe was getting very high. SPHP knew she had to be getting very close to Fossil Lake. Lupe and SPHP were following the trail on the W side of the creek, and came to another place where the creek had to be forded. SPHP now made the mistake of not just fording it and staying on the trail. (The visitor guide map did show the trail crossing the creek not long before reaching Fossil Lake, but by now SPHP had lost a great deal of faith in the map since it failed to show so many landmarks.) Instead, Lupe and SPHP left the main trail and continued upstream on a spur trail heading NNW still on the W side of the creek.
Lupe climbed a fairly long way, maybe 1/2 mile from Skull Lake, without coming to any better spot to cross the creek. However, Lupe did come to a gorgeous lake, larger than any of the others, with views of high snow-capped peaks off to the NNW. Fossil Lake was shown on the visitor guide map as a large and very interestingly irregular-shaped lake. Maybe this was Fossil Lake? It didn’t seem to be in quite the right spot, but only a portion of the lake could be seen.
Lupe and SPHP climbed up near the top of a ridge along the SW part of the lake. Lupe actually got up on top of the ridge, but SPHP was blocked by a nearly vertical 20 foot high snow bank. Lupe had no problem going right on up. She stood on top of the snow bank peering down at SPHP. SPHP made it partway up the snow bank. The view was splendid. SPHP didn’t realize it then, but Lupe and SPHP were looking at Fizzle Lake – not Fossil Lake.
It was starting to get late in the day. SPHP was pretty tired from the long climb, although Lupe seemed quite happy. At least there weren’t any more of the “bad bugs” to plague her up on her snow bank. The terrain around Fizzle Lake was rugged enough to discourage SPHP from any further exploration around the lake. It was time to head back. This was supposed to have been an easy day, after all!
On the way back down towards Skull Lake, SPHP could see the main trail on the hillside on the other (E) side of the creek. Having pondered the visitor guide map some more, SPHP now realized that Lupe had not reached Fossil Lake. It had to be just over the ridge on the other side of the creek. Thirty more minutes and Lupe could be there. If it had been earlier in the day and the mosquitoes weren’t so bad, Lupe and SPHP would have forded the creek and gone to see Fossil Lake. As it was, Fossil Lake was going to be left to a future American Dingo adventure.
The mosquitoes were horrible almost everywhere on the way back, even where they hadn’t been on the way up. Lupe and SPHP hurried along. At the outlet of the unnamed lake W of Ouzel Lake, there were lots of little 3″ to 5″ trout leaping out of the stream to eat mosquitoes flying above the waters. Lupe and SPHP paused momentarily on the trail to cheer the little trout on! A few minutes later, SPHP was plunging right on through the creek at the ford a bit farther downstream. The boots got soaked, but Lupe and SPHP did not have to serve as the local blood bank.
Along the E side of Russell Lake, Lupe encountered 7 or 8 backpackers coming up the trail. A young woman leading them was startled by Lupe. The backpackers were on their way to East Rosebud. They intended to camp at Russell Lake, which was a very good choice. It is a beautiful spot, and by some miracle there still weren’t any mosquitoes here.
Below Russell Lake, Lupe and SPHP stopped to rest on the big smooth stones near the bridge across the creek where there is a view of the waterfall. Lupe hadn’t eaten anything all day. She eagerly wolfed down part of a trail mix bar, and all of the Taste of the Wild SPHP had brought for her.
Lupe had a fun time sniffing an exploring along the trail the rest of the way back. SPHP was pretty miserable due to mosquitoes which were very annoying all the way. Deet was helping, but the mosquitoes still whined all around SPHP’s face looking for vulnerable spots. It was enough to start SPHP thinking it was about time for Lupe to leave the Beartooths and head for the Canadian Rockies.
When Lupe got back to the G6, it was 47°F and 9:38 PM. Just another short, easy 11-hour day on the trail in the beautiful Beartooth Mountains!
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