Indian Heaven mid-week near the end of September had few people on the trails. Over the course of six hours and twelve miles, making a loop from the Cultus Creek Campground on Indian Heaven Trail #33, Lemei Lake Trail #179, Pacific Crest Trail #2000, and Cultus Creek Trail #108, the only humans I saw were one solo hiker and one organized group of ten or twelve older hikers. A few wildflowers were still blooming—lupine, asters, arnica, paintbrush, spirea, sickletop loosestrife. More numerous and more interesting than the wildflowers were the mushrooms—giant boletus scattered through meadows and along the trail, and amanita in colors ranging from yellow to bright red. Huckleberries and blueberries were still juicy and sweet.
Every creek crossing was dry, and the trails were in excellent shape, with only one small tree across one trail. Mt. Adams, visible from the Indian Heaven Trail at the beginning of the hike and again from the Cultus Creek Trail at the end of the hike, seemed extraordinarily bare, with few patches of snow and ice. No bugs, and a pleasant cool breeze susurrated through the trees under blue skies. Pikas were out on the talus slopes. Scales of partially de-seeded cones of Pacific silver fir appeared in bright heaps along the trails. The lakes—Cultus, Clear, Lemei, Junction, Bear, and Deer—shimmered in the sunlight as beautiful as ever.
The gravel roads to Indian Heaven Trailhead coming from the west were in excellent shape. Highway 30 enabled travel at 30 mph, with no potholes; Forest Road 24 had washboard sections but no potholes or dips, and no need to drop below 20 mph.
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