My sandbox

I have been farther afield, but today I wanted to grow my familiarity of the area close to home. I had flown past Eatonville south over Alder lake , before returning to the known safety of the flat lands. Today I pressed on , following the highway south and climbing until I spotted Morton.Not having a lot of experience in Mountain flying( I have read Sparkys book) I had climbed to almost 7000' to be 2000' above the peaks of the nearby hills. It was smooth so I made a powered decent into the valley around Morton. I made my radio call and received a reply for Morton area traffic. After overflying the airport I finally spotted what looked like a hang glider off my right wing. A trike He corrected me. Not liking the narrow ( by my standards) valley I flew to Riffe lake to turn around. I had good speed control on approach so the short 1800' runway was no issue in the 172.The Trike had reported light winds, local smoke confirmed that. I launched back to the east, avoiding the right turn to avoid the mountain. next time I will work on flying a proper pattern in the tight confines of the valley. I decided to suck it up and continue to Packwood since I had come this far. Since I was low, I stayed low, taking in the sights. The peaks, still spotted with snow loomed above my wingtips warning me of their power. Knowing my destination was mere miles up the valley, and seeing the blip on the Garmin inching closer, I flew on. Rounding the corner of a small hill on the left I spotted the strip. I made my calls , and saw mower's off to the sides of the area, clearly not a factor. After using their permanant outhouse facility's I again took off in reverse of my landing. Flying 1000 AGL along highway 12 provided plenty to see as the Cowlitz meandered below me. Carrying it's load of spring silt and runoff downriver. At Randall a pilot called in his arrival to the private airport there, I responded with a position report first then a sighting. A short time later I announced my crossing the valley as he landed. He was home at his airpark. The Cowlitz passes south of the hill by Morton, and soon the campground and several of my past fishing sites rolled below me. It was a beautiful flight along the lake till finally the damn then Mossyrock & it's damn were behind me. the charts listed a number of private strips in the area but other than Fantasy Field Ionly spotted one. I circled Fantasy once but not seeing anyone, set course for Chehalis. Stretching my legs at Chehalis I saw what looked like a familiar Ercoupe. Sure enough it parks one hangar over at Auburn. After edging around Grey & McCord's airspace, Making a position report south of Thun traffic I finally rolled into the home valley at Orting. My sandbox is slowly getting a little bigger.