Made it to the Rainbow Creek Trailhead in my 4X4 although it took some aggressive driving at points. Trail started out dry, and ridge was dry (Pic 1). Bridge is still out but creek crossing was easy. Started encountering snow around 10,000 ft (Pic 2). It was earlier in the day so the snow had not yet softened up. We used Microspikes till tree line. Was either dry or windswept snow to the top. Final pitch was not too bad with a couple of scrambles (Pic 3). On the way down once we hit tree line we put on our snow shoes. This was a must to avoid the post-holeing that Zdero1 had to go through the week before. Eventually got back to dirt where we took out snow shoes off. As we were leaving, it looked as though weather was coming in (Pic 4).
Note: I finally broke down and bought a GPF for this climb. It was heaven sent as route finding would have been very difficult otherwise.
Also, I've got additional pictures from the top of the Crestones and a panorama video if anybody would like to see conditions on some of the surrounding peaks.
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