The Best Trails for Beginners at Hidden Valley

A Note About Color Coding at Hidden Valley

We like to start all of our skiing articles with a quick note on the color-coding system. In North America, most ski resorts denote green trails as the easiest, blue as intermediate, and black diamond as expert level (with double black diamond denoting the hardest of the bunch).

It is worth remembering that although this color system is standardized around the continent, the actual trail difficulty is specific only to that resort. A green run at one resort may be more difficult than a blue at another property. A blue at one property may be similar to green at another. As such, when we talk about trail difficulty levels and their respective colors, they should be considered only within Hidden Valley.

We'll make some comparisons of trails at Seven Springs within this article, and where greens/blues do not line up (particularly because we think Hidden Valley is perhaps just a bit easier overall), and only are doing so because the two resorts are located close to each other (about 15 minutes apart) such that you may be curious where things overlap.

• Note: Hidden Valley can get busy on weekends; however, it is often less busy than Seven Springs nearby. This is another reason why it is a great spot to visit for beginner skiers.

The Best Beginner Trails at Hidden Valley

The easiest trail at Hidden Valley is, in our opinion, Voyager, which goes into Lower Comet on the far left side of the resort if looking up mountain (the North Summit area). You can reach this one from the main lodge by taking the Blizzard Lift up to the top, turn left, and follow the trail to the right until you see signs for this green (the only one on this side of the mountain).

These two trails are quite long, decently wide, and have a very nominal grade, and are a great place to practice your skills. After finishing a run, you'll be on an isolated side of the mountain and need to take the Avalanche Lift back to the top. Here, you can either repeat more runs on these trails or grab the tow cable back up to the top of the mountain.

On the return, you can take the flat Model T trail to cross the top of the mountain and loop into the Lower Continental trail to return back to the main lodge- another fairly easy slope that only has an extra percent or so of grade from the previously mentioned trails.

From there, Rambler is a great next green to take as, like the previously mentioned trails, it is fairly flat. We would consider this one to be slightly more challenging, if only because the final segment connects to the Bobcat trail at a fairly narrow point (with a steeper drop-off towards the side). It is possible that you can pick up a bit of speed here if you are not so adept at tighter turns, but it makes for good practice all the same in working on control.

• To compare these to trails at Seven Springs, these are at the difficulty of the Village Trail, and, for the narrow segment of Rambler/Bobcat, perhaps similar to Philip's Run.

Once you're comfortable with these, we'd make the argument that you should work towards trying Upper Continental, a blue run which feeds into Lower Continental noted above. While this one is labeled as blue by Hidden Valley standards, it is only really so because it has a very short segment with a bit more grade right at the start. Since it feeds into a green, we would lump it into beginner trails, just because conquering this one lets you tackle Lower Continental straight from the Sunrise Lift.

The Best Intermediate Trails at Hidden Valley

For those who are looking to up their game on blues at Hidden Valley, you have a number of options and, as mentioned at the start of this article, they are not too difficult compared to blues at nearby resorts.

Angel's Elbow on the North Summit could be a great blue to start if you're looking to expand your horizons at Hidden Valley. The reason for this is that the steepest segments are similar to Upper Continental, above, but just a fair bit longer overall. It also empties out into Lower Comet, as noted above, so you have a fair bit of distance at the end to slow down and continue working on your skills.

From there, most of the remaining blues at Hidden Valley have a notable jump in difficulty, but are not too extreme for those looking for something a bit more challenging. Good runs to expand could be Upper Comet (which also empties into Lower Comet), Cobra, and Imperial, to name a few, and, perhaps, also in that order. Each of these runs has some steeper pitches to contend with, but settles out with more gradual grades at the end.

The first run empties into a green, and the latter two have a bit of appreciable grade the entire run. But if you're comfortable with Angel's Elbow in its entirety, these could be good stretch targets for a visit before tackling the other blues at the property.

• To compare these to trails at Seven Springs, I'd argue that Angel's Elbow is only slightly more technical than Lost Girl (an advanced green in my opinion). Comet feels a bit like Giant Boulder, and Imperial and Cobra are somewhat comparable to Wagner at varying segments. So if you're a regular skier at Seven Springs, you can see why we are so adamant about conquering Wagner to open things up at our area parks. Master that one, and you should feel well prepared to tackle most other blues!

For those looking to work up towards a black diamond, I found Thunderbird to be a good first one here; however, the initial drop-in can be quite daunting when looking down at the top. I would put this one on the same level as Gunnar at Seven Springs; however, it felt slightly steeper looking down at it from the top, if I am to be honest. (I did both for the first time ever on the same day, for what it is worth.)

Overall, Hidden Valley is a great resort for beginners thanks to several fairly easy green trails to contend with, as well as a few blue trails that are approachable (for some skill levels, at least). If you ride regularly at both Hidden Valley and Seven Springs, you are in for the best of both worlds as you can practice on differing levels and really open up the resorts a great deal once you are comfortable!

Hidden Valley is located at 1 Craighead Drive in Hidden Valley, PA.