Helen Lake – The Uphill Battle

We started from Bunny Flat and began hiking the trail up the mountain. The first part up to the Alpine hut is easy and not too steep, and the hut is a good place to hang out and look at the scenery before beginning the real climb. After the hut the trail is clearly marked for a while and begins rising more and more above the tree line. There hits a point where the trail seems to disappear with tons of loose rocks hiding where the trail really is, but you can make out flags in the distance to continue on track. The trail is really steep at this point and you are walking on scree. This continues for a mile and a half, and eventually we crested over a steep part of the mountain and made it to the lake. The views were incredible, but there wasn’t much of a lake, it was covered in a very thick layer of snow. Overall this is definitely the most strenuous of the 6 pack of peaks climbs, but also one of my favorites!