Most people come to Cody thinking they’ll hike once, maybe twice, and spend the rest of their time at the Buffalo Bill Center or driving toward Yellowstone. I get it. But if you ask anyone who actually lives here where they go when they need to clear their head on a weekday morning, you’ll hear a short list of names come up. Ring Lake Trail is on that list.
The trailhead sits off South Fork Road, about twelve miles south of downtown — close enough that I’ve driven out there after work with the sun still high enough to make it worth it. The road itself is good gravel for the most part, and you don’t need a truck, though it helps in spring when the shoulders get soft. Park at the small pullout and you’ll see the trail marker almost immediately. The whole loop runs roughly five miles, with maybe 600 feet of elevation gain — nothing brutal, but enough to make your legs know they did something.
What I didn’t expect the first time I went was how different the terrain feels from the high-elevation trails closer to the park entrance. Down here, you’re in badlands-adjacent country: red and ochre rock formations, sagebrush that smells incredible after any rain, and a horizon line that just keeps going. The lake itself is small — more of a large pond, honestly — but it sits in a natural bowl that catches afternoon light in a way that makes you want to just sit on a rock and eat whatever you packed.
I’ve been out there in early May when the wildflowers were still deciding whether to show up, and in late September when the aspens were doing their thing and the air had that clean cold bite. Both times, I passed maybe four other people total. That’s the thing about this trail — it doesn’t show up on the top-ten lists, so you get it mostly to yourself. Bring water. Bring a snack. Cell service goes away pretty quickly once you drop into the lower section.
There are no fees to access this area, which is part of the Shoshone National Forest. You don’t need a permit. Dogs are welcome on leash. I’ve taken my brother’s lab out there twice and she treated the whole thing like a personal gift.
The one thing I’d tell a first-timer: don’t expect a dramatic alpine experience. This isn’t the Beartooths. It’s subtler than that — more about space and quiet than peaks and waterfalls. But for Cody locals, that subtlety is exactly the point. When you live somewhere that everyone else is passing through on the way to somewhere more famous, you start to appreciate the places that ask a little more of you before they give anything back.
Go in the morning if you can. The light on those red formations before ten a.m. is worth setting an alarm for.
