The Hidden Lake plate. Relief from Copernicus GLO-30; rivers and lakes from USGS NHD; watersheds from the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset; roads and city limits from Census TIGER 2024.
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Hidden Lake’s center stands about 8,960 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 8,010 ft to 9,790 ft, a difference of 1,780 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Longs Peak, about 14,220 ft, 13 miles northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Granitic rocks of 1400-m.y. age group (alkali-feldspar-granite, granite), from the Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old.
The section below crosses 9 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 3×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Biotite-gneiss, schist, migmatite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene, less than 0.5 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Alkali-feldspar-granite, granite. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Siltstone, sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Carboniferous to Early Triassic, 247 to 324 million years old. About 0.8 mi of the line.
Shale, limestone. Age: Early Cretaceous to Late Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old. About 0.5 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 3 smaller units along the line are not listed.
Heights from Copernicus GLO-90 (a surface model: it includes buildings and tree canopy); summits from USGS GNIS; rivers from USGS NHDPlus HR; rock from the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation.
A raindrop that lands in Hidden Lake reaches the Gulf of America by way of South Saint Vrain Creek, Saint Vrain Creek, the South Platte, the Platte, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,400 river miles.
1,170 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Hidden Lake; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
