My dad and I attempted to climb Little Bear via the SW ridge. We made it to the sub-summit "South Little Bear" aka Mama Bear before turning around. I can't speak about the final traverse to the true summit, but up to the south summit this route is quite safe (relatively speaking). I wanted to add a short report mainly to share our GPX for the bushwhacking approach through the forest, in case it's helpful for a future climber.

We left Longmont at around 10am and arrived at around 2:30pm Lake Como Rd in my stock 4wd 1990 Toyota Pickup. A bumpy ride, but not hard to drive to around 8,800 ft where there is tons of parking. The TR by Wentzl was very helpful in identifying the start of the bushwhack, so I'll just refer folks to that report.

The bushwhack through the pinon pines wasn't bad at all until you get near Tobin Creek, where it gets a bit thicker. There are remains of old "roads" you can try to follow through the forest. We lost the thread of the roads in the middle, where you go up and down across several dry drainages. The road becomes easier to follow once you get past these drainages. I think on our hike back to the truck two days later we came pretty close to the ideal line, albeit with a few minor mistakes, so I've included that gpx below. The portions of this gpx at the beginning and the end should be especially helpful - we definitely intersected Lake Como Rd at the correct place and I think we found a great place to cross Tobin Creek, right below the waterfall.

After a very pleasant night sleeping under the stars we got up just before 5 and starting hiking just before 6. There's not really any beta needed, just follow the ridge for an eternity until you reach the summit. My dad wrote up his thoughts in a separate report. I'd agree that the route feels much longer than it is. There are only a few short pitches of class 3, so the climbing is not difficult. I'd say none of the moves are as hard as, say, the boulder move at the top of the trough on Longs. However, there is a good amount of exposure at the end of the route. The exposure on the climber's left (to the north) is extreme (similar to Chiefs Head in the park) for the entire last mile or so of the ridge, but the exposure to the climber's right (south) is usually not bad. This makes it feel manageable. There are few moments when the exposure to the right does build (up to maybe 15-20 ft?). For those brief sections, the ridge reminded me of how I felt on the El Diente/Wilson traverse. To be clear, LB's SW ridge is much easier than the El D/Wilson traverse, but the exposure felt similar in some brief places. It's a different kind of exposure than the Longs narrows because you have a drop on both sides of you. To be honest, it was just plain fun!

We reached the summit of South Little Bear after a bit more enjoyable scrambling. Dad didn't have enough gas to traverse over to the true summit, so we turned back. What a wimp! Haha, just kidding!! It says something about my dad that, at 64 years old, he's one of only 2 or 3 people I know that could do a big outing like this. Our partnership exploring the mountains of Colorado together over the past 30 years is one of my greatest treasures in life.

The route down is, of course, terrible. Endless talus. At one point, after what already felt like an eternity of descending talus, I looked down and saw that we were still at 13,300 ft. Good times. My only other route note is to be careful when you get back into the trees to stay near the ridge crest, in order to minimize wasted effort, but to remember that there is also a bump on the ridge about 6-800 ft above the falls that is best skirted by going to the east (descender's left).

One option that could be considered is camping higher on the SW ridge. I marked the coords of a great campsite at about 10,400 ft: 37.546824 deg N, 105.532317 deg W. On the plus side, your summit day will be a lot easier. On the minus side, you'd have to carry your heavy pack (including lots of water) up the steep start of the SW ridge. To be clear, Tobin Creek is the only water on the route.

In summary, the SW ridge is a perfectly viable alternative to the hourglass route. I haven't done the hourglass, but I can confirm that the SW ridge route has almost no rockfall danger to it, and has some fun scrambling at the top. Now that I know the way through the forest, I think that if I try it again I'll just do it as a single push, starting before sunrise from a camp at 8,800 on Lake Como Rd.