There are so few trip reports for this lovely hike, so I figured an update would be helpful.

Highlights: gorgeous, incredible views, stunning lakes, mosquitoes ate us alive.

Details:

My friend and I started out from the Maple Pass Trailhead around 3pm Friday afternoon.  We managed to snag a spot in the parking lot surprisingly, likely due to the later afternoon hour and it being Friday.  First two-ish miles on the Maple Pass Loop were just lovely, gentle grade, lovely views, trail in good condition. At Heather Pass, we split off toward Black Peak and the lakes.  Here the mosquitoes began in earnest.  My friend and I were getting bit like crazy basically from when we first crossed Heather Pass until we came back over the next day. 

Trickiest part of the hike is the talus field between the pass and Lewis Lake. The dirt trail leads you much farther down than you really need to go, but traversing the talus field is its own challenge so choose your preferred struggle. We followed the dirt trail on the way out and mostly stuck to the talus field on the way back. 

Lewis Lake is incredible, a beautiful, brilliant greenish-blue. We didn't see many campsites, just one right off the trail that a group was setting up in.  We stuck to the right side of the lake, again following the dirt. Without avalanche danger, going left along the talus would probably be easier but either way works.  

Up to Wing Lake is just a grind, not tricking technically if you stick to the trail, just work.  The views make it much more enjoyable, as well all the pikas and marmots scurrying around. Wing Lake was breathtaking.  Took us about 4 hours to get there, very much meandering. Only saw two other groups Friday night and barely saw them at that.  I definitely second some other comments I've seen online about establishing a latrine if traffic continues to increase. 

Saturday morning we debated doing Black Peak, but it looked rather formidable, and we decided to just head down. We saw at least six groups start up the peak as we were packing up and passed many more people heading up on the way down. Tons of people on the Maple Pass Loop as expected, cars all along the highway as we left. Took a detour to Winthrop before heading back, highly recommend Sheri's Sweet Shoppe for post-backpacking ice cream. 

Overall, gorgeous overnight, planning on coming back to do Black Peak either as a day hike or another overnight once we're in better shape. 

One last backpacking trip before the snow starts falling this weekend! 
Despite smokey skies on the drive up from the East side, the air was clear at the trailhead and the air quality remained good at higher elevations. The boulder crossing is indeed challenging but still reasonable for experienced hikers even with larger backpacks. It just takes patience and caution to make your way across the rocks! This doesn't seem like a good trail for dogs but plenty of people doing it with their pets. My best route advice is to stay along the treeline as much as possible which makes the mandatory boulder sections shorter.  
The hike up from Lewis to Wing lake is STEEP and takes longer than you think it's going to. Beautiful larch forests here but most of the needles have dropped by now. With the incoming wind & rain forecasted for this weekend all of the larches are certain to be bare within a day or 2 so golden season is officially over. 
Our stay at Wing lake was spectacular and quiet with only one other tent in the area both nights. Plenty of good campsites for people to spread out, I'd say it would take about 15 or so tents for it to start feeling busy. Please try to camp on dirt instead of vegetation whenever possible to minimize impact! The forest service really needs to install a privy (toilet) system here as they do in so many other Washington areas because of the high use... there was a lot of evidence of improper human waste burial. We climbed up to Black Peak on our second day. The section of steep loose rock up to the saddle is awful and there's so good route so just bring a helmet for rockfall from climbers above and go straight up! Going down is actually much worse. Good sturdy boots and poles were incredibly helpful. One at the saddle it continues to climb steeply on a loose rock trail (class 2) and gets increasingly spicer until the last push which is definitely class 3. The views in every direction are worth the effort. 

We arrived at the trailhead at 2am to only 3 cars there and started hiking at 3 am. We arrived at the wing lake just as there was enough light to keep walking without headlamps, and watched the sunrise from the Boulder field above the lake. 
Alpenglow made the landscape pink and orange. The larches glowed. 
Once it was light out we could see the larches were still golden! Some were a little on the brown side already, but many prime larches too. Seems like they are on the way out. 
The Boulder field was a bit tricky in the dark, but fine. 
My dog had a great time. Plenty of water for her.
We turned around short of black peak because of the smoke, but had a great day anyway! 

Sunny, a touch hazy.  Hordes of vehicles, humanity, dogs at the Maple Pass trailhead - on a Tuesday.  On our way out two days later, we counted 93 day hikers coming up the trail below Heather Pass.  And the obligatory 5 piles of uncollected dog poop and several wads of toilet paper from folks who are too important and busy to clean up after themselves.  

Lost the vast majority of people as we broke away from the main trail on the way to Wing Lake, below Black Peak, for good reason.  **Do not take this route if you are the least bit inexperienced or uncomfortable with basic route-finding and traveling on uneven, rocky, steep terrain!**  

Once the toil was over, we spent 2 spectacular days/nights amongst the larch trees, now waning slightly past peak and slowly dropping their needles.  We felt very lucky to not be traveling over snow and bundled up in bags for cold nights.  It still felt like summer.  What a crazy year and I hope we can make up for it with some heavy snow dumps this winter!  

Glad to finally get up here - and sort of sad that Maple has become loved nearly to death.  I would imagine that dog bans and regulations/permit discussions can't be too far off in the future.  

I found this trail to vary from very easy to fairly difficult to follow, but mostly fairly easy. The route through the boulders between Heather Pass and Lewis Lake is the obvious crux of the route. Though it was clear almost the entire day, I had the “joy” of crossing the boulders in fog which started to cruise through Heather Pass just as I got there. The fog only lasted about a half hour or so but, it definitely had me following the cairns for a while and I eventually lost them and just continued up the stream bank to Lewis Lake. I think the only thing really difficult about the boulders on a dry, warm morning like this is knowing that you have to do it again on the way back. If they were icy (common in normal Octobers), I think it could be quite treacherous going. My route back from Lewis Lake to Heather Pass followed the lower elevation trail which had much less bouldering. The scenery between Lewis and Wing is spectacular with large tracts of gold larches and though that part of the route is steep, it is well defined almost the entire way to Wing Lake. In some places, many of the larches have now lost most of their needles which carpeted the trail at times. Though the smell of smoke was noticeable at times, the local views were unaffected and even some of the distant views were surprisingly clear. Since I left early, I only encountered one other hiker between Heather Pass and Wing Lake inbound and didn’t see and tents or camps at either lake. Outbound, I eventually passed about 15-20 others heading inbound.