July 19, of turquoise and shaken lakes: Wade, Cliff, Hebgen, and Quake Lakes

It’s a funny thing about quiet. Just think how noticeable it is when everything is so quiet that you literally hear only the quiet. We’re so inured to the background noises that it takes us aback to realize how quiet a place can be. Our drive to some out of the way lakes today was like that. Our Montana guidebook spoke of some lakes which are fairly close to Yellowstone, only six miles down a dirt road off Hwy. 287 so we decided to check them out.  

A first glimpse from afar left us wondering about a teasing smear of turquoise color. As we neared the lake, Wade Lake by name, it appeared as if the entire lake was a turquoise green quite unlike any lake we’d seen before. A few cabins and a small forest service campground greeted us as we pulled up to take some pictures and marvel at the way the boats just seem suspended in such blue water above the white sands beneath. The water is crystal clear—we spied fish as we sat on the shore and listened to the quiet you only get when there’s no close highways. The dark surrounding woods seem to absorb even the children’s laughter; everything but the color of the water was muted.

Just south of Wade Lake is Cliff Lake, another marvel of beautiful turquoise where we spread a blanket and had lunch watching for more fish in the very shallow shoreline waters. The license plates of the campers and fisherman were almost entirely either Montana or Idaho (it’s a mere stone’s throw away) so obviously this is a local’s spot probably not known to the vast majority of tourists. 

The dirt road leading to these jewels passes through the old ghost town of Cliff, now a few dilapidated plaster and roofless log buildings surrounded with an electric wire fence and the No Trespassing signs of the Three Dollar Ranch. Too many people must have tried to carry a piece of the old west home with them, so the town was fenced off to preserve what’s left of its meager life. 

Only a few miles to the north of our campground sits Hebgen Lake, a reservoir formed with an earthen dam built in 1915; damming the famed Madison River. Signs along the north highway (287) proclaim historical points of interest, one of which is the reason for our drive this Saturday.  

Late on the night of August 17, 1959, the river below Hebgen Lake shuddered with a 7.5  scale earthquake. It was the last night of camping at Rock Creek Campground for 28 souls who were buried under 80 million tons of  rubble as the 7600 foot high mountain above them collapsed. Reputed to be some of the best fishing grounds of the Madison River, the river quickly started to back up. The tidal wave formed in Hebgen Lake from the quake traveled six miles and engulfed the dam before littering the river below with tons of rock and the remains of lakeside buildings. The dam surprisingly held.  A trench was made to allow the river passage without additional flooding. 

                Quake Lake and landslide                                      Channel dug to empty Quake Lake

Today there is a Forest Service visitor center which charges a fee for entrance to learn the story of Quake Lake. Quake Lake still sits, somber, dark, and littered with the ghosts of the forest it consumed. One lone boat was out the day we visited—it’s an eerie kind of place still smacking of sudden death even in the daylight of this beautiful July day, forty three years and eleven months later.