BRETT FRENCH | bfrench@billingsgazette.com
Yellowstone National Park’s second largest lake offers paddlers a chance to cruise clear alpine waters and camp in the pines while conversing with raucous ravens and loudly protesting squirrels.
Although these activities may be common to other waters, Shoshone Lake also has the added cachet of a backcountry geyser basin that warms a creek where large red dragonflies zing through the air like scarlet darts.
Measuring about 12.5 square miles, Shoshone Lake is only one-tenth the size of its larger and more famous neighbor, Yellowstone Lake. But what it lacks in volume Shoshone makes up for with a sense of serene seclusion since its inaccessible from a road and closed to motorized boats.
Paddling to paradise
To reach Shoshone, paddlers must first cross Lewis Lake. Although only 2.5 miles if you are a straight paddler, it’s probably closer to 3 miles or more if you’re a squiggly steerer like me or hug the western shoreline to avoid the wind and waves (more on them later).
Adding to the feel of isolation, despite thousands of people whizzing by in vehicles only a couple miles away, is the three-mile paddle up the narrow and winding Lewis River channel, which connects Shoshone to Lewis Lake.
I say paddle, but late in the summer the water in the channel thins out as it nears Shoshone Lake. That meant pulling the boat upriver for about a mile while wading through the deepest water to avoid dragging the canoe across sandbars, river rocks scarred by plastic peeled from previous boats and partially submerged logs.
Perched at an elevation of about 7,795 feet, the lake is closely guarded by a thicket of lodgepole pine trees capable of silencing the hum of the outside world.
The wind and the waves
Planning for the trip began in March, with entry into a lottery to receive an earlier chance at reserving campsites. All of Yellowstone’s backcountry camping spots are now secured through recreation.gov.
The lottery allotted me a late date to seek camping spots, although still earlier than everyone who didn’t enroll.
The stress then mounted as this travel planner anxiously calculated dates, campsites and estimated travel distances. Having never been to the lake before, choosing campsites is a gamble. Since I rarely canoe on lakes, estimating travel distance and time was also an iffy calculation.
I decided on a campsite close to the lake outlet for the first night, figuring we might be exhausted after covering the 6-mile-distance. That was a good call and a beautiful site.
I may have been overly optimistic about the second campsite, since it took much of the morning to paddle the estimated 9 miles. I had hoped to stop at the Shoshone Lake Geyser Basin along the way, but the wind kicked up so we pushed on.
We were propelled in large part by Yellowstone National Park’s ominous, but not to be ignored, website warning: “Sudden strong winds can produce waves of three to five feet in height, making open-water crossings very dangerous.”
Previous encounter
I knew the warning was no idle threat. In 2019 we canoed the eastern side of Yellowstone Lake to the Southeast Arm. The first day out, high afternoon waves swamped our 16-foot craft after we launched later in the day than hoped.
Consequently, this year we strove to be on and off the water early in the morning, avoiding the blustery afternoons. Yet weather and winds can be fickle in the mountains, and my paddling calculations flawed, so we battled waves that threatened to top our heavily loaded watercraft when required to navigate the boat sideways.
I say heavily loaded because when canoe camping, I tend to take a lot of gear. We had two coolers, a two-burner propane stove and extra sleeping pads. We were probably propelling close to 300 pounds of weight, more than half of which consisted of my aging bulk.
Rest day revoked
At our second camp, called Flat Top and located in the gray Cement Hills, I had planned a two-night stay to allow an extra day of rest, beachcombing, book reading and idleness. The decision to hike back to the geyser basin, however, scuttled those plans.
The hike started with route-finding through the woods to locate the trail that circles the lake. This proved difficult in the dense lodgepole forest since there are no tall mountains or other landmarks. After several route recalculations thanks to a GPS, we finally stumbled onto the trail and hiked on to Shoshone Lake Geyser Basin.
According to the Park Service, the basin has “one of the highest concentrations of geysers in the world, more than 80 in a 1,600-by-800-foot area. Located at the west end of the lake, it includes geysers, mudpots and burbling hot springs atop a snow-white earthen crust. A garter snake and small lizard found the warm area appealing, moving out of the trail as we hiked through.
Just past the basin Shoshone Creek is accessible. Its flow warmed by geyser waters contained a profusion of large red dragonflies. The Montana Field Guide identifies them as a red-veined meadowhawk, a native species of potential concern because of their declining numbers, range and habitat. The red dragonflies — also called scarlets, rubies and, my favorite, flame skimmers — shared the creek with smaller, more commonly seen blue dragonflies.
Beach naps
Thanks to the geyser basin hike, the layover day of rest turned into a blistering 8-mile roundtrip trek. We arose early the next morning with sore feet to accompany aching shoulders to paddle cross Shoshone Lake at The Narrows. This route took us back to the southern shore and our final campsite near Moose Creek, which flows through an expansive meadow in which I saw no moose.
This became our rest day. I took two naps while reclining against a beached driftwood log, my feet buried in the warm sand as waves quietly lapped the shore. For almost the entire day, Shoshone Lake was eerily calm. As the backcountry ranger we met noted, this was an unusual occurrence, the calm before the storm.
The next day brought blustery conditions early, prompting me to cautiously steer the canoe close to the Lewis Lake shoreline on the way out. Loading up the truck for the drive home seemed anticlimactic after our five-day adventure on the water and in the woods. The rhythm of spiritual solace was abruptly abandoned.
Although we had met another couple when we launched five days earlier, we never spotted them again, further testament to Shoshone Lake’s ability to spread paddlers out for an extra sense of remoteness in a park that annually hosts more than 4 million people.
Notes on paddling
All Shoshone Lake campsites are reservation only. The sites include vault toilets and poles to hang your food out of a bear’s reach. Most are well separated, meaning your neighbors are far away.
The hanging poles are high, 10 to 15 feet, so I brought along the hoist I use for big game to lift my heavy loaded cooler aloft. The hoist itself was too short, so I attached it to a length of thin cord to extend its reach.
Hunting also provided me with an over-the-shoulder strap I have used to drag out game. It worked well to pull the canoe upstream. Dragging the craft downstream proved more difficult as the current often pushed the boat.
Motorized boats are allowed on Lewis Lake, but not on Shoshone. We mostly saw canoes, although several kayakers and one paddleboarder made the excursion. We also bumped into backpackers circumnavigating the lake. They must reserve separate campsites, only a few of which access the lake.
Fishing requires a park permit which can be purchased, along with your backcountry boating permit, at designated ranger stations in the park. Boats must be inspected for aquatic invasive species before launch. A ranger told of one group attempting to avoid the permit and launch. They were caught and threatened with a lifetime loss of visitation to the park.
In addition to high winds, the other main concern in Yellowstone is cold waters. In June, water temperatures may be only 40 degrees, rising to around 60 degrees by late summer.
Even when the Lewis River channel has more water, earlier in the season, paddlers will likely have to wade the last mile going upstream as the current is strong.
Sharp shards of obsidian, a black rock common along Shoshone Lake’s shoreline, can get trapped under sandals when wading up the Lewis River channel. If you have fishing waders and boots, or just wading boots, that helps keep rocks out.
Planning trips into Yellowstone later in the summer has the benefit of fewer biting bugs, although nights are often cooler.
Yellowstone has an online boating booklet with more tips.
https://www.nps.gov/yell/planyourvisit/upload/boatingregulations_2024_508web.pdf
