[Otter]

Last weekend Marmot and I went on a very long drive on Saturday. Since I only moved up here in December of 2000...I haven't had much of a chance to get to know the area. Except Rainier. So I woke up rather early on Saturday and got up to throw stuff together...and a while later woke Marmot up and informed him we were going for a drive. We went over 410 to the connection with 12 and then back to I-5 and home. A very long drive but still very enjoyable..and I really have a better since of what is in my backyard now. We stopped at all the campgrounds along the way to check them out...made note of where the trailheads were and so on. Saw some beautiful area..and quite a variety of terrain. Alot of the hikes on the east side of 410 are melted out and this is an area i really want to explore. The american ridge area and fifes peaks especially. We drove back into bumping lake too. We did a short hike up bear creek canyon off of hwy12 not too far from the intersection with 410. It was a good 100 degrees in that area that day. We didn't get far because the trail was over grown with poison ivy..of which i want nothing to do with! (bad enough earlier in the day we went to scramble up to a columnar basalt wall to check it out for climbing and on the way down I managed to sit on stinging nettle. OUCH!) We found a great place to eat on hwy 12. A place called Masters Resort. The lady that runs it is really friendly and the food was spectacular... hamburgers that nearly were like homemade ones! She makes her own lemonade...and it is superb! From ther we noticed a lot of interesting lakes and a lot of trailheads leading out into a mass lake area. The pct runs through there too. I think the section of the pct from 12 to 410 would be a nice hike say in September when most of the misquitos are under control. Any way great trip and I am really looking forward to getting back out there and checking things out in more detail.