Writing on October 6 to share some information about a hike we completed September 15. So the information here may not be perfectly up-to-date, but the non-Carne trails I tagged have no trip reports since August 2022 or 23, so some of this information might be useful.
To Carne Mountain: We dropped our car at the Estes Butte trailhead and were generously offered a ride by the first car to come by. Trail was in good shape. Larches were juuuuust starting to turn. No running water to filter. A pair of hunters were camped just below the summit, directly on the trail.
Old Gib trail to Estes Butte: Trail was in somewhat rough shape. Route-finding skills might be helpful. The actual trail usually, but not always, follows the track represented on Caltopo. We crossed one small creek to the northwest of the Old Gib summit and were able to filter water. (First, we crossed a trickle. Walked another 30 seconds and found a stronger stream, where it was much easier to collect water.) There were a few segments with stretches of challenging blowdowns along the way to Estes Butte. Overall, the trail took longer than expected and we didn't quite summit before dark.
Estes Butte to trailhead: We noticed a small fire (mostly smoke) on the east ridge of the summit. Looked like it had been going for some time. (We reported it to USFS.) There was ~3/4 of a fresh onion on the ground nearby. No idea if these finds are related. We had been dreading the Estes Butte segment of the trail all day, expecting to find the mess of blowdowns reported in the most recent WTA trip reports. Luckily, the trail has been logged out - I think we only had to climb over a single tree all the way down to the trailhead.
Lovely route, but - in retrospect - I would have started earlier. We didn't start hiking until close to noon - an extra hour or two would have helped us get some views from Estes Butte summit and the lookout site. I don't know what the water situation looks like at other times of year, but on a hotter day I might recommend carrying a lot from the car. It's a long way from the single water source we found northwest of Old Gibb all the way down to the trailhead.
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