EISPIRATEN

Saw a white boulder on Mt Akawie from the ACH and made a failed attempt to get there, thanks to thinking it would be easy to find/see. BTW, no snow in the Waterman area...as in zero.

Not having a topo, I found myself on a flat trail going towards my boulder. It has a lot of footprints, but feels like you rediscovered it. Eventually the trail went up, likely to bag the peak. I kept on going level and ran into a rock section of the mountain. There are trails here, but who knows how it supposed to work. On the way back, a hiker/climber tells me bouldering is at Horse Flats. Ummm...no, there is bouldering a lot of places.

The white boulder


Akawie level trail


Rock#1...5 point I aint getting on top from any direction


View down another rock


flake


travelling along a use trail


Partially up, looking for class 1 travel on the dome.


Same spot looking at the climb next to me


Further up...but there was a class 3 bypass...


Just below the top of the climb, looking down to Buckhorn


Same spot, view down Buckhorn and an interesting rock domey thing down at little rock creek

I was on Akawie yesterday and it was a total fail. It was the beginning of an Akawie-Cooper Canyon-Winston Ridge/Peak loop and it was a bad start! Yeah, there are trails, but where in god's name are they going??

You start up a trail from that gated fire road between Cloudburst and Buckhorn. Then there's a fork. If you go to the right (east ish) it starts going down, I didn't want go down so I turned back and took the left on the fork that goes up. It did seemingly go to a saddle-esque thing, and this is where I should have turned off trail and just headed for the top I think. But the trail kept going so I was like ok, trail. So I'm following this trail and it's going up and east but then it starts curving back toward the 2. But I'm like ok, this will probably take me to Buckhorn and that's fine, I'll just head for Cooper Canyon from there (btw, this is no trail I've ever heard of or seen on a map, but the whole thing was lined with branches on one side like someone clearly delineated it as the trail for some reason). So I'm practically within sight of Buckhorn and the trail turns around and starts taking me back to Akawie. It's definitely possible it was going to turn back to Buckhorn at some point but I wasn't taking any chances at that point and I just off trailed it down to the campground. I headed straight for a bathroom thinking that will at least be a good consolation for not being where I wanted to be -- and it's locked! Why do they lock bathrooms in the forest? Even if the campground is closed, why lock it? I don't understand! Anyway, a ranger was there painting the campground and directed me to one he opened. Everything went fine after that.

Point is, Akawie is like the world's shortest hike. Why is it so weird? Next time I'm just going straight up till it stops. I swear the trails are just there to confuse you.

Sorry, didn't mean to hijack your thread! Agreed, not a drop of snow anywhere...

As far as peaks go, Akawie is the lamest of the San Gabriels. You didn't miss anything - no views no nothin...'nuff said.

Nice little explore there AW!