Thomas Lake

Brilliant scarlet and purple huckleberry leaves and scads of juicy, ripe berries highlighted this 9.7-mile loop hike. While other areas of the Cascades are experiencing berry crop failures this year, Indian Heaven is enjoying its usual bounty.

We feasted on berries as we hiked the Thomas Lake Trail to its terminus at Blue Lake (4 miles). The first 2 miles of the trail have seen much work and are in fine shape, with turnpikes and boardwalks over wet areas. Beyond Rock Lake, the trail is very badly eroded at water crossings and in desperate need of some WTA trail crew attention.

At various times, the PCT has had three routes across central Indian Heaven. They can be described as the Old Old PCT, the Old PCT and the modern PCT, which now traverses the west slope of East Crater and misses most of the meadows and tarns that give Indian Heaven its charm. After lunch, we backtracked on the Thomas Lake Trail to its junction with the Old PCT and hiked it about a mile to Junction Lake where we then took an abandoned connector trail to the Grand Meadow. We returned to Rock Lake on the Old Old PCT. Despite being abandoned, these trails get plenty of horse and hiker traffic and the erosion is really bad. I think these trails should be returned to the "system" so they would get some maintenance from either Forest Service crews or WTA volunteers.

From Rock Lake, we returned to our cars at the Thomas Lake trailhead. A glorious, warm, sunny day spent in a very special wilderness: Emily, visiting from New Zealand, said it was the most beautiful place she had ever seen.