The Kasparov Traverse, Indian Peaks Mega Hike & Climb! Shoshoni, Navajo Peaks & Niwot Ridge [4K UHD]

This Incredible Indian Peaks Wilderness Adventure took us across the much revered Kasparov Ridge Route that traverses along a beautifully tower studded shear ridge, after summiting Shoshoni Peak. The towers are known as the Chessmen! Kasparov is a former world champion Chess player, hence the fitting name for the route.
We started off route still low down in the trail system; despite having visited this area a couple times before, it was always in snow and I had previously descended off the Pawnee Pass trail, on snow, to the west side of Isabelle Lake, so that is where I erroneously lead us depositing our party at the base of the imposing South Face of Shoshoni Peak! My bad! From there we started ascending a giant steep gully for about 2,000'. We could not see the end of the gulley as we climbed and could only have faith that passage was possible. After much class 3 & 4 scrambling we arrived at our first summit of the day after ascending our newly named, "Faith Gully." For a gulley climb it was fairly consolidated and the surrounding tower studded walls were intimidating yet breathtaking!
We proceeded west from that Summit and then contoured south onto the incredible Kasparov traverse! The views, climbing and exposure were all incredible crossing this perilous land bridge in the sky as we were greeted by all the Chessmen. From there we traversed under the summit of Apache Peak and into a deep tower studded notch at the base of Navajo Peak.
That class 3/4 scramble was Awesome, contouring gently upwards around the west side of the mountain and then straight up in a pair of steep and deep loose chimneys. Another amazing summit was gained affording incredible views of North Arapahoe Peak as well as additional points and lakes to the south and east.
From there we descended the south east shoulder of Apache continuing east on a connecting ridge, Niwot ridge. We thought the major difficulties were over but the further east we got on Niwot Ridge the more technical the scrambling became, the eastern most sections affording amazing scrambling and super intimidating exposure on less reliable rock.
Finally the climbing was over and our party was exhausted and running out of water. Fortunately we found a trickling spring on the north shoulder of the now gentle eastern side of Niwot ridge. It was just deep enough for filling water bottles to filter much needed water. From there we contoured east along the north side of Niwot Ridge until we found an open and friendly gully/drainage that let us easily down to Long Lake and the established trail system. WOW!