Lava Lake, Montana, United States
There are several hikes that keep getting mentioned as among
the best in the Bozeman vicinity, which narrowly defined means within about 30
miles and broadly so within about 100 miles which is about as far as you might
drive for a day. I’ve been hitting quite a few of them recently. One I keep
hearing mentioned is Lava Lake, situated in the Spanish Peaks near Gallatin
Canyon about 30 miles southwest of Bozeman.
The name Lava Lake conjures up images of a fiery lake filled
with volcanic lava. That’s what mostly came up when I Googled for images of
Lava Lake before adding Montana to the search. Maybe the place has some
volcanic origin, but geology is not my forte. My main geological takeaway from
what I read about it is that it’s the only lake in the Spanish Peaks not
created by glaciation.
The trailhead for Lava Lake starts at a big parking lot (it
needs to be big for one of the most popular trails in the area) along the
Gallatin River and highway through the canyon. After a week of hot warm sunny
weather the Gallatin was swollen with runoff from the high country and prime
for rafting.
The trail to Lava Lake is approximately six miles round trip and
climbs 1,600 feet along the way, almost entirely through evergreen forest along
scenic Cascade Creek.
The vertical ascent over that distance makes for a
relatively easy hike, at least in my current relatively good physical shape.
And with sunny skies and nice temperatures the conditions were just perfect.
When you finally get to the lake, it’s one of those great Rocky Mountain scenes,
perhaps not the most breathtaking one I’ve seen but still lovely.
Although the trail continues upwards toward the high
mountain peaks, it wouldn’t be long until you’d hit a substantial amount of
snow. And I also only planned for an easy half day hike. In fact, people tell
me the lake was largely iced over until a few weeks ago and snow still covered
parts of the trail to the lake until the last week’s warm spell. I can see why Lava Lake is such a popular hike.
I have not been following the tradition of apres hike
libations at a brewpub very often recently. I guess I’ve been too concerned
about getting back into shape to eat out. It was Wednesday, though, and Bridger
Brewing Company advertises a mussels special on Wednesday nights, so I figured
I’d go and sample a some beers at one of Bozeman’s many breweries. The mussels
in spicy tomato sauce were great but the half pound portion cost about as much
as a kilo pot of them does in Europe, so I left still hungry. I was being a
good boy, though. Pizza is their
specialty but is not on my diet until I manage to trim down a little further.
2025-05-22