Scramble – Navajo Peak, Niwot Ridge

Brainard Lake, WINTER LOT (just before the toll booths) 4:15am

This is a very adventurous scramble: only folks with proven scrambling experience or those who have been on my Flatirons Scrambles can attend.

Starting from the Long Lake trailhead, hike past Long Lake, Lake Isabelle. Continue along the trail past a small pond. From there it's off trail in the bowl to Airplane Gully, the site of a 1950s plane crash: there is an entire plane up there, quite neat! Once you top out on the ridge, a few hundred feet more to get to the summit of Navajo. Those few hundred feet are a pretty solid 3rd class scramble.

After topping out, descend and continue along Niwot Ridge, which is a very exposed (in places) 3rd/4th class scramble on good quality rock.

Bad weather/threat of bad weather cancels or modifies hike!