Linton Lake home to rare trout and one of Oregon’s tallest waterfalls

What makes Linton Lake special is not immediately obvious.

The short hike to the lake, located just off McKenzie Pass Highway in the Three Sisters Wilderness, features pleasant forest but is otherwise unspectacular. The lake’s waters can be difficult to reach due to a steep canyon and damage from the 2024 Linton Creek Fire.  

In other words, there’s not a ton to make it stand out, especially compared to the far more striking places nearby. The waterfalls of Proxy Falls, alpine views of Dee Wright Observatory and lakes such as Benson and Matthieu offer more dramatic scenery and easier access a short distance away.

Yet if you look a little deeper, just below the water’s surface or just onto the mountainside, there are two things that make Linton special — trout and a gigantic waterfall.

If you look up from the right spot, you can spot one of the state’s tallest cascades — Linton Falls, which may be 600 to 700 feet tall.

The lake is also packed with angry brook trout and home to one of the few populations of brown trout in western Oregon. It makes for a fun day to catch a few brookies for dinner and catch-and-release the beautiful browns if you're lucky enough to land 'em.

Both highlights are best appreciated by hauling in a packraft or float tube so that you can explore and fish the lake properly.

There are lots of brook trout to be caught at Linton Lake, and it's not a bad idea to harvest them to make more space for the more rare brown trout.

The amazing, shrinking Linton Lake

The size of Linton Lake changes a great deal throughout the summer. In early season, when it’s full, the lake is about 80 feet deep and 80 acres. It shrinks by almost half by late summer, dropping to just 45 acres as the water drains through the lava dam that originally formed the lake some 3,000 years ago during volcanic activity.

View of Linton Lake.

Overnight permit required at Linton Lake, but day-treks OK

This being the Three Sisters Wilderness, a trip to Linton Lake requires a special Central Cascades Wilderness permit if you’re staying overnight. But if you’re just doing a day-hike, a Northwest Forest Pass and filling out a free permit is all that’s required.  

Short hike leads to Linton Lake, but how to access the water?

From the side of Highway 242, the Linton Lake Trail shoots into sweet smelling forest highlighted by rhododendrons in early summer. It stays forested the entire way, passing below some mammoth Douglas firs and crossing a pass of lava rock. The lake is visible after just a little more than a mile, but most people continue a total of 1.5 miles to a campsite.

When the lake is low, in late summer, you can bushwhack through a tangle of brush and out to a marshy beach. It’s a nice spot to look out at the lake and take a swim.

A trail continues past the campground and leads to some nice access spots. But due to the Linton Creek Fire, the trail was festooned with downed trees.

It required lots of climbing, hopping and tightrope walking to reach a proper access point. This was made far more difficult by the fact that I was carrying my float tube and fishing gear, and scraped myself up attempting to reach a halfway decent place to launch my boat.

View of falls from Linton Lake

View of Linton Falls from the Linton Lake.

On the far side of the lake, Linton Falls drops an estimated 600 to 700 feet down the cliffs. That’s led some to call it the tallest waterfall in western Oregon — higher even than 611-foot Multnomah Falls. In truth, the waterfall is split into so many different drops and runs it's probably hard to call it a single falls, but it’s still a titanic cascade.   

Problem is, it’s very difficult to view. You can bushwhack around the lake to where the creek rolls into the lake, then head up the falls as far as you’re so inclined. However, that was difficult even before the Linton Creek Fire, and may be near impossible now.  

“I'm not sure it's a good idea for normal people to go up there. There's significant fire damage and the viewpoint of the lower falls is at the edge of a cliff; it would be easy to fall into the canyon,” said longtime guidebook author Matt Reeder.

For me, the best view of the falls came from the lake in a boat. The waterfall roars with incredible power high above the lake and you can catch a really cool view of it, even though it only hints at the waterfall’s total size and scope.

In search of trout at Linton Lake

The main reason I’d traveled to Linton Lake was to seek out the lake’s trout. Fishing from the bank is challenging here, so I brought my float tube for a proper day on the water.

I wasn’t disappointed.

View of fishing from Linton Lake.

There are a ton of brook trout if you find the right spots — right at the lava dam on the west side of the lake and at the outlet of Linton Creek, below the spray of the waterfall. Both places were great fun to toss out Blue Fox spinners and reel back in foul-tempered brookies.

Fish biologist Jeff Ziller encouraged harvesting the tasty brook trout.

“I would encourage you to harvest some of the brookies if you happen to get some,” Ziller said. “You definitely can’t hurt that population at all.”

Removing some of the brook trout also makes room for the lake’s more rare species of trout — brown trout.

Brown trout found few other places in western Oregon

The brown trout at Linton Lake are a rarity in western Oregon.

“It may be the only lake in the Willamette Valley that (has them),” Ziller said.

Ziller said brown trout were stocked long ago.

“Although the records were lost in the fire in Salem around 1937, we believe brown trout were released into the lake in the early 1900s and they evidently were successful at reproducing in the inlet streams, especially Linton Creek,” he said.  

Brown trout are rare to find in western Oregon lakes, but Linton Lake does have a population of them. This brown trout was released.

The brown trout have been able to hold their own despite the exploding brook trout population. Ziller said fish surveys have shown the browns to be between 8 and 16 inches.

“The fish we see in the lake are not plump, but they are not skinny either,” he said.

No fish have been introduced to the lake since 1972, meaning the fish there are all self-sustaining.

Harvest brookies, release browns

Given that brown trout are found so few other places in Oregon, I came to Linton Lake with a plan: harvest my limit of brookies but if I got a brown trout, I would release them. Not because they’re native or endangered (they’re not) but just because it’s fun to catch something different at this unique lake, and it’s more fun if that continues.

It wasn’t hard to catch the brook trout once I found the spots they reside, but finding the browns was considerably more tricky. I circled the lake and was eventually lucky enough to land a pair. Both were pretty fish — a brown-golden hue with black and red spots. I was able to release one while still in the water, and one after a quick photo briefly out of the water (although I never had to touch it).

Ziller said anglers are on solid ground to harvest a brown or two without jeopardizing the population. But given the number of brookies, and the beauty of the browns, I liked the idea of fishing for a good cause: eat the brookies, enjoy the browns, and go home feeling happy about a lake where the things that make it special are just below the surface.

There are lots of brook trout to be caught at Linton Lake, and it's not a bad idea to harvest them to make more space for the more rare brown trout.

Linton Lake

In a nutshell: A mountain lake in the Three Sisters Wilderness off McKenzie Highway 242 with options for day-hikes, easy backpacking trips with kids, fishing or a waterfall scramble.

Permits: Central Cascades Wilderness permit for overnight access. Northwest Forest Pass and self-issue permit for day-use.

Length/difficulty: About 3 miles round-trip to Linton Lake

Camping: Yes, there are campsites near Obsidian Creek and Linton Creek near the lake.

Swimming: Yes, near the two campsites.

Fishing: Brown and brook trout

Trailhead: Navigate to Alder Springs Campground / Linton Lake Trailhead (well marked by signs). It's about 10 miles up the west side of McKenzie Highway 242 from the turnoff from Highway 126 near Belknap Hot Springs.

Zach Urness has been an outdoors reporter in Oregon for 18 years and is host of the Explore Oregon Podcast. He can be reached at [email protected] or (503) 399-6801. Find him on X at @ZachsORoutdoors and BlueSky at oregonoutdoors.bsky.social.

This article originally appeared on Salem Statesman Journal: Linton Lake home to rare trout and one of Oregon’s tallest waterfalls