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I just returned from a great weekend away with a bunch of friends at our place on Harstine Island.  The occasion was Craig’s bachelor weekend and we’d decided to get some bruises and fun action at Master Blaster’s Paintball Park in Grapeview, WA.    The location is within an easy 90 minute drive of downtown Seattle.

This was my second trip to Master Blasters and it’s been a great deal of fun both times.   The owner “Blaster” aka. Brian is extremely friendly and goes out of his way to ensure everyone regardless of skill level is having a great time. 

On entering the paintball field you see a hand painted sign reading “Master Blasters, where you feel the fun” :)  After getting our rental gear and the obligatory safety briefing, we went to the range to make sure our guns were all shooting within a safe range (265fps seemed to be the goal).    The shooting gallery is pretty fun with lots of stuff teddies, old satellite dishes and various bits of junk.  There’s something for everyone.

Blaster’s currently has four fields:

1. George W’s Oil Depot: a fort made of oil barrels.  The game is “last man standing” where a small group enters the fort and holds it while a larger group rains fire on them.   Pretty good fun.
2. Tactical Course:  This course has lots of barrels which are hard to defend.  Keep moving or you’ll get hit.  
3. Abandoned City: The city course is one of my personal favorites, lots of cars and small buildings.  There are also a couple of bunkers in the corners giving the defenders a great field of fire.
4. Woods Course: The woods are great, lots of small paths with a few dug in bunkers.   The game here is typically capture the flag – you have to traverse the field to the opposing teams bunker, get their flag and then return it to your own bunker.

Brian is in the process of adding two more; a construction depot with old backhoes and tires plus a converted barn that’ll be used to simulate hostage situations.

Since our group of six was small, Brian had called in two of his regular paintball crew; Jay and Carl.   As we walked up to the staging table, there were murmurs of “we’re going to get iced by the townies”.   Jay and Carl were excellent sports and clearly committed to the game.  They were both sporting custom rigs and tactical harnesses with “red dot” sights on their weapons.    

During the day we played many games and had fun with the six of us versus the two of them, we also broke into groups of 3 and 3 and had Carl and Jay join one of the teams each.   The games ranged from elimination, to capture the flag and Custer’s last stand.

We were clearly having too much fun so Blaster himself joined in several of the games.    To even the odds, he wore a bright blue set of 12” bunny ears.   It was hilarious to see the bunny ears poking up from behind rock walls and such revealing his position.

Given the weekend was in honor of Craig, it was only fitting that he played the “President” in one game with Blaster, Carl and Jay acting as the secret service.  The rest of us were out to assassinate Craig.   Unfortunately the president didn’t make it safely to his Surburban.  Had he actually got there, he would have found the car locked (great thinking Adam!).

The supplied rental gear is great, clean and functioned well.  Brian supplies cleaning spray and cloths to keep the headgear nice and clean.   I found this particularly useful given the large number of headshots I’d received from Jay 🙂

Prices are very reasonable too – a full rental package and field fee for the day is $20.   We bought two cases of ammunition (4000) rounds for the day bringing the cost to a very reasonable $40 per person.

All in all, we had a great day at Blaster’s; we arrived at 11:30 powered by a big breakfast and left at 4pm sweaty, exhausted but with big smiles. On the ride for the obligatory post-game beer there was much discussion on buying our own gear for the next time …

Hasta la Vista Blaster, we’ll be back…