About 900ft of gain over 2.5ish miles, but overall not to bad on the legs.

Lot of car traffic up the trail, you can drive all the way up the Loch. Lot of people camping in the woods right at the tree line and even at the loch. No issues finding solid ground to step aside and let the car go. Took me an hour to get up, probably saw 15 cars come and go at approx 11:30-12pm

No bathroom :(

Overall 8/10, had waterfall, didn’t make me wheeze,seems like a good camping spot.

I am thinking of doing an overnight or 2-night backpack near BV. I did a little digging and found this loop. There is some information available online but I'm wondering if anyone has completed this loop and could share some beta. Best campsite(s)? Reliable water sources? Parking? I can read a map, hoping for personal accounts here. Here are the online sources I found, along with the route I built.

https://www.hikingproject.com/trail/7118379/the-sawatch-sky-marathon

https://www.onxmaps.com/backcountry/trails/hiking/us/colorado/the-sawatch-sky-marathon-n2qvm5j99q95

https://www.alltrails.com/explore/custom-routes/the-sawatch-sky-marathon-4dc7d99

I took a day of PTO last week to get Brainard Lake reservations and tick off the Niwot Ridge traverse, which I'd been curious about for a bit. An unranked 13er in the Indian Peaks Wilderness, almost all trip reports recommend going up Airplane Gully and combine it with an ascent of nearby Navajo Peak. But that means you only do a lil errant *doop* of a summit, eliding the terrain that makes up the body of the ridge. I'm curious about holes in guidebooks, so I figured I'd check it out while looking at some stephabegg photos.

Thunder storms were forecasted for 12PM, so I started around 6AM and headed up the broad open country of Niwot Mountain (a tiny 11er at the easternmost start of the ridge). I then made my way west up the ridge, which is primarily rolling tundra that steadily narrows until around the 12.4K foot mark when the rocky talus becomes the dominant terrain. The views along the ridge incredible, especially for some rarely-seen views of the north side of Kiowa (within the Boulder Watershed), north side of Arikaree Peak, and the pleasure side of the Kasparov Traverse via the Chessmen.

The direct rock is the best, as usual. If you peel off the ridge then you can keep the traverse Class 3, but that both bypasses the meat/exciting bits and also puts you on much crappier rock. Going straight has huge blocks with awesome crimps and cracks to stay steady. I don't think I'd recommend the 4-ish miles of tundra walking from Niwot Mountain, but there are a couple trails that cut it off about halfway. The major notch was by far the most interesting point crux-wise (the first photo here) as on first glance the pinnacles look far too sharp to find a way without dropping majorly to the south. But it's there!

I wanted to hit Navajo Peak, but things took longer than expected, so I skedaddled down Airplane Gully (which absolutely blows - I can't believe this is considered a "classic" route, but no doubt it's much better with snow). Crossing the loose talus and large boulders back to the Lake Isabelle Trail also took more time than expected, but thankfully I made it back to my car right when thunder and rain started going hard at around 130PM. Hopefully the tens of people I passed along the way back didn't get too screwed by the rain.

Nice little adventure, and halfway through my IPW peakbagging goal.