Advice finding Spanish Creek Trail (Crestones)

I came up to check out the Prow on Kit Carson via Spanish Creek. At about 2 miles and I think the last creek crossing I completely lost the trail. I circled back several times and climbed up and down the hill with no success finding it. So I ended up just bushwhacking the rest of the way. I’m camped at the base of the Prow so any advice finding the trail back down from here would be greatly appreciated.

The last time i was up there (a long time ago) there was a ton of deadfall that made routefinding really tough.  i think there had been a fire and/or a windstorm that blew a ton of trees over.

Joel Thompson wrote:

I came up to check out the Prow on Kit Carson via Spanish Creek. At about 2 miles and I think the last creek crossing I completely lost the trail. I circled back several times and climbed up and down the hill with no success finding it. So I ended up just bushwhacking the rest of the way. I’m camped at the base of the Prow so any advice finding the trail back down from here would be greatly appreciated.

I usually load the Gaia app or if all else fails use Strava to find obscure trails via the heat map function

Here is the CalTopo I used: Kit Carson South Prow
https://caltopo.com/m/F9PR2
definitely have to pay close attention to avoid losing the trail and having the gpx helps 

Agree with Strava heat maps! Hard to load in the backcountry though so perhaps screenshot and compare as Caltopo is accurate too. I've been up it twice but years back and recall scattered cairns through the deadfall and rock slabs. It was much easier finding it going down as you can pick it up before the trees.

On the way down, I'd highly recommend finding the trail between 100 - 200 feet horizontal on descender's right/ north of the creek before continuing down below 10,700 as that's where the trail gets further from the creek. There is indeed a social trail through the deadfall that is bearable. It's then easy to lose in some rock slabs and talus, but I recall hugging the steeper parts veering higher/right as the better option versus going lower to the creek. The trail then follows a faint ridge on the north side of the creek, paralleling a couple hundred feet above until 9,600.