West Yellowstone Area Cliff Lake Wade Lake Hebgen Lake Quake Lake |
Cliff Lake
Cliff and Wade Lakes sit on a geologic fault that formed a chasm that filled with water; cliffs surround much of the lakes' shorelines. Cliff Lake is the larger and somewhat more isolated of the two. Wade Lake is more easily accessible and receives more use; it's spring-fed and stays partly ice-free in the winter. Both lakes support many nesting raptors. Look for prairie falcons, bald eagles, and osprey. Do not approach or disturb nesting birds. Waterfowl and beavers are common on both lakes. In winter, Wade Lake is a good place to see river otters and occasionally trumpeter swans. Larger mammals frequently seen include elk, deer, and moose, which are even more numerous and visible in the winter. Cliff Lake offers some exceptional canoeing, especially in the remote coves. Click here for more photos.
Wade Lake
Wade and Cliff Lakes sit on a geologic fault that formed a chasm that filled with water; cliffs surround much of the lakes' shorelines. Cliff Lake is the larger and somewhat more isolated of the two. Wade Lake is more easily accessible and receives more use; it's spring-fed and stays partly ice-free in the winter. Both lakes support many nesting raptors. Look for prairie falcons, bald eagles, and osprey. Do not approach or disturb nesting birds. Waterfowl and beavers are common on both lakes. In winter, Wade Lake is a good place to see river otters and occasionally trumpeter swans. Larger mammals frequently seen include elk, deer, and moose, which are even more numerous and visible in the winter. Cliff Lake offers some exceptional canoeing, especially in the remote coves. Click here for more photos.
Hebgen Lake
Hebgen Lake is approximately 15 miles long and 2.5 miles wide. Hebgen Lake has been called the premier stillwater fishing lake in Montana. Hebgen Lake is a man-made lake, retained by an earth-fill dam approximately 15 miles long and 2.5 miles wide. It was, and is a popular vacation and fishing spot, near Yellowstone National Park. In 1959 an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.5 occurred along a fault that crosses the Madison River. The quake damaged the dam, but not severely. The most spectacular and disastrous effect of the earthquake was the huge avalanche of rock, soil and trees that cascaded from the steep south wall of the Madison River Canyon. This slide formed a barrier that blocked the gorge and stopped the flow of the Madison River and, within a few weeks, creating Quake Lake almost 53 meters deep. The volume of material that blocked the Madison River below Hebgen Dam has been estimated at 28 - 33 million cubic meters. Most of the 28 deaths were caused by rockslides that covered the Rock Creek public campground on the Madison River, about 9.5 kilometers below Hebgen Dam. Madison Canyon Earthquake Area and Visitors Center offers interpretive programs about the 1959 earthquake. Click here for more photos.
Quake Lake
On August 17, 1959 an earthquake in the Madison Canyon River Area, near West Yellowstone, formed Quake Lake. The earthquake created a massive landslide of about 80 million tons of rock, which stopped the flow of the Madison River in the Madison River Canyon gorge. The landslide caused 28 deaths, flooding and about $11 million in damage to the forests and highways in the area. The lake measures six miles long, one-third of a mile wide, and 190 feet deep. Today many fishermen enjoy fishing by boat or along the shores of the lake. The shoreline is accessible from Highway 287 and a boat ramp can also be found. Cutthroat and brown trout are stocked yearly. Float tube fishing is not the best way to fish because of the many timbers below the surface and the occasional high winds. However, those timbers create great places for the fish to live, making dry fly fishing great. Click here for more photos.
