Our hiking binge continued with a repeat trip up Waterman Mountain, the westernmost peak in the San Gabriels over 8,000′ in elevation. Our last visit here was over six years ago, which is a little hard to believe since Jane has talked about how much she enjoyed exploring the summit rocks ever since. We expected the area to be busy on a Sunday morning, and, yes, the parking areas and turnouts around the Buckhorn Campground entrance were quite full as we went past – luckily, the small turnout at the (unsigned) trailhead had a couple of spaces left, and we parked just a few steps from the trail. It was a warm day without much of a breeze, and the few shady spots as we headed up the trail were most welcome – the ascent in this lower section is quite moderate, and we made our way up to Waterman’s east ridge without any difficulty. Once on the ridgeline, the trail turns west, climbing more steeply through a pair of switchbacks, and we recalled the improving views both north and south as one progresses upward. About 3/4-mile from the top, we turned north onto the summit trail proper, which winds its way westward again into a shallow saddle east of the peak – the walk through this area is really pretty, the saddle being peppered with rock gardens and open forest. Just east of the mountaintop, we came to a junction with a use trail heading left up to the summit rocks while the main trail continues to the right, a longer and more circuitous route but with a much gentler grade. Chris directed Jane to go left, repeating the route we took on our initial hike here, and immediately got complaints from Jane as we scraped and slid up the steep and sandy use trail. Jane hates use trails as a rule, and this one in particular felt her wrath (as well as the person who chose this route) – even after reaching the top a few minutes later, Jane was still miffed enough to wander off in search of a place to eat an early lunch, leaving Chris to scramble up to the summit benchmark by himself. After a couple of summit photos, he found her in a shady alcove just south of the summit, and we shared our lunch and a summer breeze that cooled us off a bit. For our return (and just like our previous visit), we headed north off the summit area, finding the main trail and following it eastward back down the ridge. As we started down the switchbacks, we saw a good amount of smoke rising from the Crystal Lake drainage a few miles east – the next mile or so found us constantly looking at what seemed to be an ever-growing wildfire, and we were relieved to see first one helicopter then several other aircraft appear in response. As we turned northward off the ridge, a water carrier chopper zoomed loudly straight overhead – we found out later this was the Bichota Fire and was only about 50 acres in size. The rest of the hike went by quickly – we made good time through the lower section, just trying to beat the heat as even the little shade we’d had on the way up was now minimal in the midday sun. This is a very enjoyable hike, particularly the upper portion, so long as use trails are avoided…