There’s a lot of water in Yellowstone National Park, most of it in Yellowstone Lake. It’s the biggest lake in the park and the largest freshwater lake in North America above 7,000 feet in elevation.
Then there’s Shoshone Lake, the park’s second-largest, which isn’t far from some of the park’s most popular spots. It’s 5 miles from the West Thumb Geyser Basin and the western shore of Yellowstone Lake and only 2 miles from some sections of the Grand Loop Road.
But the closest most Yellowstone visitors will get to it by vehicle is the Shoshone Lake Overlook between West Thumb and Old Faithful. That it’s in the backcountry and you can’t just drive up to it is what makes Shoshone Lake so special.
“Shoshone Lake is the largest lake in North America not accessible by a major road,” said Christopher Hondrof with Yellowstone Guidelines in Gardiner, Montana. “I think this would give it the classification of being a backcountry lake.”
Smaller And Secluded
Shoshone Lake is only a 10th as large as Yellowstone Lake. It covers 13 square miles with a maximum depth of 205 feet, compared to Yellowstone Lake’s 136 square miles and a maximum depth of 394 feet.
Yellowstone Lake is easily accessible to visitors and vehicles, as Grand Loop Road runs along a significant portion of its northern and western shores. Lake Lodge and Grant Village are located along the shores, and several ramps allow for boating.
Meanwhile, the only way to get to Shoshone Lake is by foot. It’s a bit of a hike to get there, almost 6 miles from the DeLacy Creek Trailhead near the overlook, and nearly 12 miles from the Heart Lake Trailhead.
If you’re willing to hike in, it’s about as secluded as you can get in one of the nation’s busiest national parks.
“You more or less have it to yourself, which certainly never happens, at least in the summer,” said lifelong Yellowstone employee, author and enthusiast Jeff Henry.
Yellowstone Guidelines offers a four-day Shoshone Lake Trail that takes the DeLacy Creek Trail to Shoshone Lake and explores the area. Hondrof said it’s the easiest way to reach the secluded lake.
“You can also use the Lone Star Geyser Trail to access the western side of the lake and the Shoshone Geyser Basin,” he said. “Boaters will use the Snake River Channel to get canoes and kayaks to the lake. Due to the distance, I’d say it’s a medium difficulty (hike.)”
The only way to reach Shoshone Lake is by foot or watercraft. Because there are no roads, it fits the definition of a backcountry lake despite its proximity to much of Yellowstone’s “front country.”
In his decades-long career in Yellowstone, Henry has hiked, skied, and paddled to Shoshone Lake multiple times. He even had a unique “trailblazing” experience.
“I was assigned to cut trail to Shoshone Lake from the Beckler area in 1988, and that was a good duty,” he said. “It was early in the summer, before the fires. It was a lot of work to cut the fallen logs on the trail, but a great, great time.”
During his second summer in Yellowstone in 1978, Henry was accompanied by his cousin, who got lost on a solo hike to Shoshone Lake. Henry joined the team searching for his cousin, who was found alive and unharmed.
“He got chased and treed by a grizzly,” he said. “That was my first experience at Shoshone Lake, and in retrospect, it was a good experience for him, too.”
Shoshone Lake in Yellowstone National Park is huge, but it’ll take some work to get there. There are no roads to it, which makes it the largest backcountry lake in the Lower 48. But it’s worth the effort to get there for a serene, secluded experience. (Addy Falgoust, National Park Service) 
Shoshone Lake in Yellowstone National Park is huge, but it’ll take some work to get there. There are no roads to it, which makes it the largest backcountry lake in the Lower 48. But it’s worth the effort to get there for a serene, secluded experience. (Getty Images) 
Shoshone Lake in Yellowstone National Park is huge, but it’ll take some work to get there. There are no roads to it, which makes it the largest backcountry lake in the Lower 48. But it’s worth the effort to get there for a serene, secluded experience. (National Park Service)
Little Yellowstone
Hondrof described the view from Shoshone Lake as “fairly flat.” It’s surrounded on all sides by dense lodgepole pine forest, but there’s plenty to see.
The Shoshone Geyser Basin on Shoshone Lake’s western shore is Yellowstone's largest backcountry geyser basin. It contains over 500 thermal features and, with over 80 active geysers in the area, might be one of the highest concentrations of geysers anywhere in the world.
“It’s a good concentration of thermal activity,” Hondrof said. “It’s a fun place.”
Notable active geysers in the Shoshone Geyser Basin include Minute Man Geyser, Union Giant, and Velvet Spring. Some of the springs and thermal pools in the basin are so colorful that they’d give Grand Prismatic a run for their money.
No motorized watercraft are permitted on Shoshone Lake, but anglers might want to grab a canoe or kayak for a fishing trip. The website Fly Fish Food says a floatation device and insulated waders are “a must” for anyone who wants to catch “some of the most beautiful brown trout alive.”
There’s also plenty of wildlife to see, along with the perils of encountering any wildlife in the less-populated areas of Yellowstone.
“(We) bumped into a grizzly one time along the western shores of the lake,” Hondrof said. “It was a pretty close encounter. We also heard lots of elk in the fall during the rut.”
During one of his winter visits to Shoshone Lake, Henry had a once-in-a-lifetime wildlife experience.
“We found a wintering bighorn sheep ram in the geyser basin in the winter of 1987,” he said. “That was highly unusual because that area of the park isn’t known for being bighorn sheep habitat, and I’ve never heard of bighorn sheep wintering in any geyser basins at the time.
Spending the winter surrounded by the warmth of the Shoshone Geyser Basin was a smart decision for that bighorn sheep. It might have been a bit lonely, but Henry said the ram was doing well.
“That was obviously in the days before wolves, so I would guess he probably made it through the winter,” he said.
Fatal Attraction
A trek to Shoshone Lake isn't without its perils.
There have been multiple fatalities in the vicinity of the lake, a drawback of its pristine isolation in the wilderness.
In September 2021, Mark O’Neill, 67, of Chimacum, Washington, and his brother, 74-year-old Kim Crumbo of Ogden, Utah, intended to take a four-night backcountry trip to Shoshone Lake. The two retired National Park Service (NPS) employees hadn't returned by Sept. 19, so a family reported them missing.
O’Neill's body was found on the eastern shore of Shoshone Lake on Sept. 20. An autopsy determined that he died of hypothermia. Crumbo, a former U.S. Navy Seal, remains missing to this day.
According to Lee Whittlesey’s book “Death in Yellowstone,” at least eight people had died in Shoshone Lake as of 2014. Shoshone Lake's water temperature is estimated to remain around 48 degrees year-round, so even if someone avoids drowning, survival time in water that cold is estimated to be only 20 to 30 minutes.
On July 20, 1978, Boy Scouts from Troop 83 in Saint Anthony, Idaho, were canoeing on Shoshone Lake when four to five-foot waves, created by a sudden windstorm, capsized their canoes. Several scouts and leaders had to be rescued, and many almost succumbed to hypothermia.
When the final canoe was located, its occupants, Van Lyle Hansen, 17, and Lane Potter, 16, were missing. The bodies of the two boys, who presumably died of hypothermia, were found miles apart over the next two days.
Henry recalled the death of his good friend, John Mark Williams, in the Shoshone Geyser Basin in February 1988. Williams and four other park employees skied to the basin for a winter camping trip.
During a nighttime walk, Williams fell into the eight-foot-deep Black Sulphur Spring. He sustained third-degree burns over 80% of his body, from his feet to his neck, in the 187-degree water.
“He managed to pull himself out and lingered through the night in agony,” Henry said.
After he managed to get back to the campsite, two of Williams’ companions tried to reach a nearby cabin but got lost in a snowstorm. The other two did what they could to ease Williams’ excoriating pain during his long, agonizing death.
Williams died around 9:50 a.m. on Feb. 9, 1988, over 14 hours after falling into Black Sulphur Spring. He was 24 years old.
“It was really tragic, and he was a really good guy,” Henry said. “There are risks out there, but I always say a backcountry wilderness risk pales in comparison to urban risks,” Henry said. “I think it's far more dangerous to visit a big city than it is to go on a canoe trip on Shoshone Lake or do anything else in the wilderness of Yellowstone.”
At The End Of No Roads
Shoshone Lake got its name from the Shoshone Tribe, which historically lived in the southern and western sections of the park. It’s one of the places where someone might get a semblance of what Yellowstone was like before it became Yellowstone.
Several significant infrastructure projects are in Yellowstone’s future. Those include completing the Yellowstone River Bridge later this year, a permanent solution to the North Entrance Road, and blasting 96,000 tons of rock from Golden Gate Canyon as part of a $22 million road improvement project set to start in September.
No plans exist to create a road to the largest backcountry lake in the Lower 48. Shoshone Lake’s isolation is part of its appeal, and many Yellowstone lovers oppose anything that would disturb that serenity.
“I would be adamantly opposed to any ‘improvement’ of access,” Henry said. “There’s never been a road to Shoshone Lake, but there was the Dog’s Head Road that was drivable for a short while. That could be used to access the Lewis River Channel between Lewis Lake and Shoshone Lake. Now, it’s just a hiking trail, and I’m glad access is closed to vehicles.”
Hondrof shared the same sentiment.
“I would be opposed to any road,” Hondrof said. “Keep it as it is!”
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
