The "new" trailhead is obvious, it is right where NF-63 coming from the west (the Index-Galena Road) hits NF-65 coming from the east (where you arrive from). The continuation of NF-63 north to the trailhead is blocked right there (although the actual washouts are much closer to the old trailhead), so you park near that intersection and hike up NF-63. There is a porta-potty there, and a trail sign just past the gate, where you can pay your daily parking fee if you don't have a NW Forest Pass (they were issuing tickets for this today).
The 2 mile hike to the old trailhead is easy. Note that the toilet at the old trailhead is locked. You start hiking and very quickly start to climb, and continue climbing. It seemed that about 2/3 of the way up the climbing got a bit easier. As you get closer to the ridge (the high point before descending down to Blanca Lake) there are some rocky parts, going straight ahead is the correct route. When you reach the ridge you can see Virgin Lake down below, hike past that and then begin the descent to Blanca Lake. This is the steepest and roughest part of the trail, but at least it is downhill on the way in. When you first see Blanca Lake you may be tempted to climb down the rocks, but continue on the trail, it loops around and descends to the shoreline.
The smoke slightly obscured the view down the lake, and certainly prevented some good views along the trail, but the lake itself still looked amazing. We were able to cross Troublesome Creek, the outlet on the west side of the lake, on some logs that crossed the opening, but the trail down the west side either disappeared or got hard-to-follow pretty quickly. Overall it took us about 3 1/2 hours from the old trailhead to reach the lake, a little under 3 hours to get back down, and the hike along NF-63 took 45 minutes each way.
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