Spent two nights at Heart Lake, hiking via the Lily Basin trail from FR-48. FR-48 is in good shape, although with a few potholes. The Lily Basin trail was snow-free, dotted with early flowers including avalanche lilies, and had great views of Mt Rainier and lots of water along the cirque at Glacier Creek. The trail from the junction with the Angry Mtn trail is steep with loose rock down to Heart Lake.
There are a few campsites at Heart Lake, one at the junction where the trail drops to either the NE or SW side of the lake (there is no trail around the lake), a couple in the meadow on the NE side, and another in the woods on the NE side. The meadow was soggy and it is difficult to get close to the lake without getting wet shoes.
We day-hiked up toward Goat Ridge, hoping to get to Goat Lake. The west-facing slopes in the cirque at Middle Fork Johnson Creek above Heart Lake still had a lot of snow. We turned around at the last snow field before reaching Goat Ridge as the traverse was long and steep and we did not bring microspikes. We then day-hiked over to the shoulder of Angry Mtn. There is no trail to the peak. The Angry Mtn trail was more overgrown and had a few downed trees but in pretty good shape as far as we went (turned around where the trail starts descending via a set of switchbacks by Angry Mtn.) The Angry Mtn trail had views of Mt Adams and St Helens.
We saw four other hikers during our three days. Two in the distance, coming from Goat Ridge. Two others came to Heart Lake to camp our second night. There were mosquitoes, mostly at the lake in the evenings. We were not bothered much while hiking.
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