WESTERN MONTANA

Summary

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Nestled in the Cabinet Mountains, Sky Lakes offers a peaceful respite from life’s constant bustle. Stroll ever upward through abundant tree’s and vegetation until reaching this pristine alpine lake.

Trail Stats

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Trail Details

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Nearly every year we take my niece backpacking. It has become a delightful tradition that we all enjoy immensely. This year, we had a heck of a time squeezing it in between their busy schedule and ours. In the end, we had one set of days to venture out, or it wasn’t going to happen.

The day prior to our departure I came down with a full blown migraine. The likes of which I have not had in years. I was solidly down for the count the latter half of the day, left hoping tomorrow I would be miraculously better. Those of you who are also unfortunate enough to suffer migraines know it’s often not a one day deal. The next day (or few) I get what I call “post migraine head.” Fatigue, queasy stomach, headache, what feels like a never ending worm hole extending back from my eye and into my brain. In other words, super fun stuff. Fast forward to departure day. I feel “better” but definitely off. We pick up my niece and drive three hours to the trailhead. Surely I will be fine by time we get there.

Arriving at the trailhead we ate a quick lunch and hit the trail. There are multiple trailheads leading to completely different areas here, make sure you’re on the correct one (you want the Flower Creek trail). Within a quarter mile I knew I was in fact still miserable. Short of breath and nauseous. Every few steps brought a new wave of upset. But, me being me, I refused to give up. I would make it. I would be fine. I simply sent Doug and my niece ahead and trudged along behind. With frequent stops to bend over, trying not to gag. Great hike.

Truthfully, I remembered very little. Spent most of it slogging along with my head down. Most of the trail is in the tree’s. Towards the beginning you will loosely follow a creek. As you ascend, there are gigantic huckleberry bushes everywhere. We hit the season just right and the bushes were laden with billions of berries. In fact, the trail is a tad ridiculous in that one has to push through all those bushes that are overgrown onto the trail.

While staring at the ground I noted a plethora of mushrooms. All sorts of varieties and massive in size. Not sure what exactly is going on in this section of the Cabinet Mountains. Massive huckleberry bushes, some taller than my 5’8” self. Dinner plate size mushrooms, shades ranging from taupe, yellow to red. It’s like all the vegetation is on steroids.

After quite a bit of hiking you’ll hit a junction, head left at the Y and you’ll start to trapse downhill. The trail then opens into a bowl. Here you are rewarded with views of the rocky cliff sides. Boulders and rock lay in jumbles from past avalanches. Grasses and berries fill the valley, trees are at sparse intervals. It’s lovely. I kept expecting to see a bear along the hillside. While we certainly saw where large animals had bedded down, but there were no large critters to be seen.

The trail loops through this opening before once again heading uphill. Along the initial stretch, one has views into the surrounding mountains, before the hills disappear behind the trees again.

After a while you’ll have to cross a “creek”. Honestly, it was more like a marshy swamp that one can mostly rock hop across with an occasional skip across muck. Or, I suppose, if you could care less on the state of your shoes, slog straight on through. Eww.

After a tad more uphill slogging you will reach the lake. For us, that simply meant running around and finding the perfect camp site. As luck would have it, we were the ONLY ones up there. All right! Perfect! A dream come true! We selected a big site on the water for the tent, hung our food bag in a tree quite a ways from said tent. Cooked and ate across the lakes outlet. It was magical.

We stayed out here for two nights. Spent day two hiking around the area. On our departure day we scrambled up the hills surrounding Sky Lakes, hoping for an overlook. Up there we found the largest bear print I’ve ever seen. Complete with a matching little bear print. Glad we found that on our last day. There’s a massive momma bear up there somewhere. While we never found a perfect overlook, partly due to time restraints, we certainly had a blast traipsing along the surprisingly wide ridge.

Once we returned to camp, packed up and headed out I was able to actually experience said trail with a clear noggin. Loads of berries were picked, enough for a pie! Yum! Turns out the trail has a lot more up and down than I remembered on the walk in. Still a rather boring walk through the woods for the latter part out. Especially when tired. Overall we loved the lake. Peaceful and serene. My only real complaint is for a second day of hiking the only real option (if you want to stick to actual trails) is to backtrack quite a ways down trail to a split where you can go along the divide trail or to another lake. It’s the backtrack that’s a little off putting. Otherwise great hike to a lovely lake.

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