Big Belts: Hidden lakes loop via the 'Needles'

The Needles

The lakes are located beneath these Baldy Peaks

There's regeneration after the fire

Jasmine Krotkov at Hidden Lake

Walking out in the lush grasses above Little Birch Creek

Fields of lupine

 I figured it had been more than 40 years since I had been in the Hidden Lakes area of the Big Belt Mountains west of White Sulphur Springs.

This is an area most commonly accessed from the west via Duck Creek Pass above Canyon Ferry Lake or Gipsy Basin from White Sulphur Springs.

My recollection is that I took my young family, accompanied by Dave and Sandi Ashley and their children,  into the Grace Lake/Hidden Lake area below the Baldy Peaks, via the Duck Creek Pass route.

I don't recall any great difficulties, although from my perspective as a 75-year-old, I can't imagine taking those young kids in.

What made this week's trip even more memorable is our approach through the Needles, a spectacular set of granite spires to the east.  I can remember seeing these when I had climbed Baldy peaks many years ago.

We approached from amazing, verdant foothills up Little Birch Creek, spangled with more lupine than I had ever seen in one place.  The grass was tall and green and in great shape from this Spring's copious rainfall.  On the south side of the creek the once heavily timbered ridge was a blackened forest of dead trees, the victim of a forest fire two years ago.

After sidehilling in the grass and scorched timber, we reached an old Forest Service trail just below the Needles.   We used this trail and its charred remnants to the lake district.

As I walked on the sloping hillside in the grass I turned back for a look at the White Sulphur valley.

We were high enough up, and the view was unobstructed and I felt like I was in an airplane flying high above that valley.

After threading a pass through the Needles we descended into semi-swamp with several open, shallow lakes and we got views of the Baldy peaks.

As we climbed, the landscape alternated between massive burn and lush, green forest dotted with a healthy beargrass blooms. 

Eventually we hit a hunter's camp and a nearby make-shift corral and then the junction to Edith Lake below the massive Edith peak.  We opted instead to the the hidden lakes loop of Upper Baldy, Grace and Hidden lakes, deciding to forego Upper Baldy Lake.

We did the loop clockwise, meaning a steep climb to Grace Lake, having to climb over and around uncountable numbers of large deadfall.

But, the lake, full of jumping fish, lay at the base of massive granite cliffs that offered a stunning, scenic backdrop.

We descended to Hidden Lake, with its equally dramatic setting of granite cliffs, and we walked across big snow drifts to get to it.

Then it was back to the trail, down and out.

As we walked through the burn I could see the sprouts of new lodgepole pine.  In some spots the burned trees were accented by bright green grasses with clusters of yellow arnica wildflowers.

The 11-mile hike ended back in the lush grasses