Plan In onX Backcountry

Pets allowed

Allowed

Elevation Gain

50.00 ft (15.24 m)

Trail type

There-and-back

Distance

7.00 mi (11.27 km)

Please respect the outdoors by practicing Leave No Trace. Learn more about how to apply the principles of Leave No Trace on your next outdoor adventure here.

The Madison River flows below the stunning rock cliffs of Bear Trap Canyon. Yellowstone’s Firehole and Gibbon rivers feed into the Madison River, which eventually merges with the Jefferson and Gallatin rivers in Missouri Headwaters State Park. Bear Trap Canyon is popular with fly fishermen hoping to snag big trout from its Blue Ribbon waters.

The Bear Trap Canyon Trail winds along the east side of the river through a stunning rocky landscape that is also popular with rattlesnakes in the warmer months. Over 3.5 miles in the trail approaches the mouth of Bear Trap Creek. There are a few evident campsites in this area.

Past Bear Trap Creek the trail winds through forest and later becomes a road en route to Ennis Lake. The lake formed back in 1906 when a hydroelectric dam was built on the Madison River.