Hidden Lake Trail

Hidden Lake Trail has been a hike that I have been wanting to do for a while now, and finally got the opportunity yesterday afternoon.

Hidden Lake Trail is another trail in the Chugach State Park. It's located very close to the Flattop Mountain Hike. We had to hike about two miles into Power Line Pass to get to the Hidden Lake trailhead. Power Line Pass is a pretty easy hike that a lot of people use for many different types of activities: biking and running are pretty popular, and in the winter, cross country skiing and snowshoeing as well. In between Flattop Mountain and many other surrounding mountains, it has many beautiful sceneries. Hidden Lake Trail is a 2 mile hike.

Yesterday, when we hiked up the trail, it was very wet, and the rain didn't seem to want to let up. With all of the rain we got, the trail was very muddy. When we got to the Hidden Lake trailhead, to our advantage, the rain stopped. In order to get onto the trail, we had to cross the bridge over a stream in the pass. Immediately, the trail went up hill; longest and most intense 2 miles of our lives. The trail was muddy, slippery, and the wind was pushing us all over the trail.

We made it up the first hill, and for as far as we could see, the rest was very flat. We got over the mountain, and were pretty secluded in between a few other mountains which cut out most of the wind. We hit the bottom of a creek which was still covered in snow, and to our surprise, the trail started up hill again, for the rest of the hike.

We hiked up 3 more hills, 2 of which, to our dismay were covered in snow. They were fun coming down, well, for me, but Kelsey took them pretty slow. The hills were pretty steep, and after each one, we kept hoping we would see the lake. When we arrived at Hidden Lake (if you could really call it a lake), I insisted that we kept going because what we were looking at looked more like a puddle than anything. I called mom and dad to see if they could tell me if what we were looking at was really the lake. After much deliberation, and a picture sent to mom, she told me that was it (She told me "it was probably hidden for a reason"). We sat down for a bit, ate our pb&j's and apples before heading back.

Going back was much easier, as it was all downhill which only took us about a third of the time to get back to the parking lot. We're still pretty sore this afternoon, but the hike was totally worth it.

We give this hike ***- because the lake is really a puddle, but the hike is adventurous and fun.