On a weekday, Friday hike, we encountered only two other hikers backpacking into Blue lake.  We had a wonderful hike in and out to Blue lake which was beautiful.  About 4.5 miles total one way hike, we encountered virtually no obstacles the first two thirds of the way to Blue lake. The last third did have patches of snow that we had to navigate, but not too difficult and always were able to find the trail on the other side. Of course, at this altitude and timing, did encounter plenty of mud and need to slightly circumvent the trail to avoid ponds, puddles, mud, etc. But again, completely navigable. 

Four of us did an overnight trip from the Thomas lake trailhead to Blue lake then north on the PCT to Bear lake (another 3 miles from Blue Lake).  The days were clear and sunny with temps around 50 degrees.  Night was cool and windy with an overnight low around freezing.  No precipitation and now bugs. We found a great campsite on the west side of Bear Lake.  The trail was in good shape with on minor water on the trail.  

As for the drive in,  we took the wind river road past Paradise campground then turned east on road 6057 to road 65 then went north. Trailhead parking was full but was room to park along the road.  There is a vault toilet at the trailhead.

Hiked from Thomas Lake TH to Blue Lake then up the other side to the lookout on the PCT Side. Weather was clear. We could see Adams and Rainier from the lookout. There were at least 3 tents at sites on the lake. Weather was in low 60's but the wind was COLD. Colors were the best I have seen and I hike here every fall. Most lakes have low water and the trail has only a few muddy spots. 

The 65 Road has a 2 year old washout that is still there and getting worse. We got through with a Subaru coming in but we all got out of the vehicle to do it. Do NOT take a car through. A mid size SUV at minimum. It would not be so bad it it were not for 2 boulders seeming strategically placed that you have to go over one or the other. I would recommend taking the detour. A few miles more but more paved road. Carson to Wind River Hwy to the 6507 road. The day we were there the FS was grading the 6507 I assume for the hunters. Hunting season is on so were ORANGE! 

Summary: Overnighter in Indian Heaven Wilderness, including a bonus scramble up to the top of Lemei Rock. Snow, snow everywhere, but no mosquitoes (yet).

Trailhead: Road 65 is washed out part of the way, you'll need to use #6507 to access Thomas Lake trailhead. Privy is open and well stocked with toilet paper.

Trailhead to Blue Lake: We hit snow almost immediately after starting the trail, though it's intermittent at first. Other than a few dry patches near the trailhead and the exposed boulders at the top of Lemei Rock, we were on snow for the entirety of our two day trip. Thomas Lake is melted out completely, but that was the exception, as all the myriad other lakes we saw were still mostly frozen over. There were no previous tracks anywhere in sight and, given how open the wilderness is, without navigation skills we would have been hard-pressed to reach Blue Lake. Though there is hardly any elevation gain, it was somewhat challenging to thread ourselves through narrow gaps between frozen ponds and lakes, as the ice looked quite thin in places and we did not want to falling through.

Blue Lake to Clear Lake, via PCT: Blue Lake was more like "White Lake", since it was still frozen when we got to it. We struck north along the still-buried PCT, skirting around the burnt-out area by East Crater and crossing over a melted out wooden bridge by the outlet to Junction Lake as well as a fallen log by Rush Creek falls. The area by Bear, Deer, and Clear Lakes is somewhat more rugged than the relatively flat plateau of the rest of the wilderness, but we managed to avoid climbing a steep talus slope by hugging Deer lake.

Clear Lake to Lemei Rock: We decided to leave the "trail" - not that we had seen any evidence of it - and just strike out eastward towards the northwest ridge of Lemei Rock. There was some decent climbing involved, but we were rewarded with a solid campsite on the ridge, offering excellent views of Adam, Rainier, and our next objective: the peak of Lemei Rock. After making camp, resting for a couple of hours, and waiting for the weather to clear up a bit, we took our ice axes and made our way up the snow-filled ridge to around 5700 ft. From there, it was mostly class 2 and 3 rock scrambling to the summit, though we were very cautious to stay away from the potentially dangerous cornices on the north side. The views from the top were tremendous, even though there was still significant cloud cover. Descent back to camp was rapid, especially once we were on the snow, as my hiking buddy demonstrated his elite backcountry skiing skills by boot-glissading down (I was forced to plunge step down, like a plebeian).

Day Two, Cross-country Return to trailhead: After a gusty but pleasant night, we awoke to a significantly sunnier Sunday. The previous day had taken us around 4 hours, with 8 miles of snow to traverse, and we decided to take an aggressive shortcut back to the car.  We shaved over three miles on the return by going cross-country, with only a few small creeks to cross and minor postholing. In addition to our time savings, we saw some bear and elk tracks, and finally saw the first other people only a few minutes away from the trailhead.

Overall, a fun trip with good company, with excellent views near Lemei Rock and wide-open areas great for practicing cross-country navigation skills.

A little bit late but I figured we'd post it anyway.  We hiked Sunday October 8, 2017 from the Thomas Lake TH to a little beyond Blue Lake in the Indian Heaven Wilderness.  On the hunt for fall color and maybe some wildlife?  We saw two deer bound across the trail and plenty of bear scat.  

We began around 8:15am with somewhat socked in conditions.  As the morning went on the sun was able to burn through and we had some nice blue skies though they seemed to fill back in in the afternoon.  The color was great and there were plumb berries to boot.

We were able to see the East Crater burn from above Blue Lake as well as Mt. Adams, and Lemei Rock. We saw one backpacker at the beginning of our hike, who confirmed the heavy rain overnight, (evidenced by some short sections of flooded trail).  We did not see anyone else until close to noon, then within a couple of minutes saw more than a dozen folks headed toward Blue Lake as we were heading out.  The lower portion is still mostly green but there is great fall color once you get up to the junction to Blue Lake.