When Glacier National Park is all locked under snow it takes a bit of creativity to find some fun hikes. If you can brave the drive on the North Fork Road up to Polebridge, stop at the Polebridge Mercantile for a pastry or other baked good, then head over to Hidden Meadow. You’ll spend three miles on the road to the trailhead, then a little less than 1.5 miles to the lovely meadow.
What a strange winter it’s been. In the first week of February, this is almost always a ski to the trailhead. Instead, we left the skis at home and were glad we did. We walked instead and the ski, with it being crusty, icy, and sparse in places would have been more hassle than it was worth.
Instead, we parked at the Polebridge Ranger Station and set off on our shoes. Had we to do it all over again, our microspikes would have been the only other thing we would have brought. The snow was squirrelly in places, soft in others, but overall pretty crunchy. There were also quite a few sections where we were walking on the gravel road.
It was fairly quiet as we walked along the lodgepole forest-lined road save for the occasional chickadee and siskin. Some trees had fallen across the road from a winter storm with strong gusts, but everything was navigable. We were spooked numerous times from the Ruffed Grouse that were aplenty.
After a fairly quick three miles under the sunny sky, we arrived at the trailhead where we took a left and climbed up the ridge. Strangely, amongst the trees, the trail had almost completely melted out. The first quarter mile or so had been partially cleared by some vigilante trail crew person, making the climb even easier.
Further up, the downfall over the trail was more than they wanted to tackle, so it was our job to navigate around, up, over, and through various patches of fallen trees. Eventually the trail leveled out as we had climbed our 200ft or so. The downfall seemed to be less as well (although it wasn’t done with us completely.)
Aspen stands started to appear and then we entered into an older spruce forest which was a welcome change from the fairly monotonous younger lodgepole pine stands. Just beyond the spruce forest, we entered into Hidden Meadow.
While the pond was still frozen over, much of the meadow was uncovered by snow. We spied a few birds flitting around the meadow and stood beneath a massive, old-growth Douglass Fir and soaked in the sun. After a brief respite, we turned around and worked our way back the way we came, hiking around 9 miles total on a lovely winter (feeling spring-like) February day.
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