I hiked up Carne Mountain on Thursday, October 3rd. It was beautiful, but most of the larches were still a bit green. I expect they will be in full color by next weekend. The trail was in good condition. There were a few blowdowns, but they were easy enough to negotiate. There was no snow when I was there, but it started to snow the next day, so there may still be some on the ground now.

I continued my hike along the Carne Mountain High Route trail toward Ice Lakes. More of the larches were in full color along that route. It was beautiful, but difficult. That part of the "trail" involves quite a bit of way-finding and rock scrambling on high, steep mountain slopes with loose rocks and gravel. I would not recommend that route unless you have done your research and come prepared. 

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.

Climb of Mt Maude, with camp along Carne High Route from 8.3-4 2024.

ROAD: Bumpy, some rather rocky stretches, rough, and rutted. Made it in our Subaru Forester, but of course there was a Tesla at the TH (and not the truck version, either). No outhouse or facilities (can we petition to have one put in at this very popular TH?). Parking was more full than we expected!

CARNE MOUNTAIN: This trail was in pretty good shape with one or two blowdowns and some brushy spots. It was a steady climb, first through forest, and then more hot and exposed. We were more than ready to refill our water bottles at the creek in Carne Basin. Huckleberries are happening, though! From there we slogged up to the saddle, dropped packs, and tagged the walk-up summit of Carne.

CARNE HIGH ROUTE: From the pass, we began the ups and downs of the Carne High Route. It was fairly straightforward to follow, which I found pleasantly surprising as I was expecting it to be rougher/less-defined. We were feeling the heat of the day as a lot of the trail was exposed to the sun, and we ended up deciding to camp near Box Creek at around 6,500'. 

The trail at this point hit a junction and split off to the right - there were some large cairns marking the way, but the trail itself was not obvious or well-trodden and looked like it kept going straight.

MT MAUDE: The next morning, we decided to get an early start to beat the heat and left camp at 5.15 a.m. The rest of the high route to Freezer Pass was definitely a bit more rugged than before, with some sections of undefined trail and route-finding through boulders, rough and rocky sections, and traversing across steep, loose hillsides. 

From Freezer Pass, we descended a little bit before hopping rocks over towards Maude and managed to find a bootpath that was fairly easy to follow through the rocks and scree. There was some flowing water through this rocky area. There were some patches of snow, but could all be avoided or walked over with ease.

It was a bit loose and steep gaining the ridge, but from there the bootpath got even better, and it was a straightforward slog to the summit through some very pretty wildflowers. 

We enjoyed our summit views - distant peaks obscured by wildfire haze, but still a beautiful spot. 

We retraced our steps for the descent, headed back to camp, and hiked back out the way we had come. I would say that doing the loop down Leroy Basin would be faster and easier, as it is a bit shorter and doesn't have the elevation gain on the exit that the High Route has - but such is the price we paid for not hauling full packs up to Freezer Pass/Ice Lakes!

BUGS: Horseflies were aggressive and super annoying - I often had 3-4 huge ones circling me. There were also smaller biting flies and just a few mosquitoes.

WANT MORE PHOTOS? Follow along on instagram @thenomadicartist for more adventures! 😁

~10 cars in the trailhead parking lot at 9am. Trail is over grown in many places along the route. So if you’re concerned about ticks, I would wear pants. Did intermittent check but never found any.

3 blown over trees on the trail but never posed any really issues. Snow fields are still present above the high meadow but aren’t hard to route find.

Made it to the saddle in under 2 hours, counting breaks and tick checks. 1.5 hours down. The walk up is tough but well worth it!!

I was planning to hike to the Carne Mountain to see the golden larch trees but failed to get to the trailhead.  A big tree was knocked down and blocked road about 11 miles before the trailhead.  Hope this will be removed now or no one got stuck on the way back.  We turned around and went to the Icicle Ridge trail instead.