Indian Heaven is one of my favorite areas to hike and backpack, so I've been "stalking" the status of it for the past couple months. Needless to say, I was quite happy when I saw the Thomas Lake Trailhead status change to reachable last week.
Road NF-65 has a fairly decent washout on it, so take Wind River to NF-6507 to NF-65 to avoid it (check the Forest Service site for current status on it).
While it is indeed snow-free up to the trailhead, (as of 6/18) you immediately run into patches of snow and in less than a 1/4 mile it becomes completely snow covered. I ran into a couple that turned around here as they couldn't find the trail, which is definitely a smart move if you aren't familiar with the area. As evidenced in the previous trip report, this is not an area you want to take unnecessary risks in as it can be easy to get lost even in good conditions if you're not prepared.
The pup and I post-holed it out Thomas Lake and the immediate smaller surrounding ones, which was easy enough, but the snow looked to get deeper on the trail out to Blue Lake so we called it quits here. I wanted more mileage, so we backtracked it Mcclellan Meadows trail to get in a few more miles in much warmer conditions.
Another week or two of sun, and I suspect this area will be completely snow free.
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