Mt. Tabor finally got enough snow for Matt, Keevin and I to make a West face summit attempt. It took us all day and we barely eeked up some of the upper sections, but we finally summited after a gallant race up shirtless by Keevin and Matt. We got to practice techniques learned by the Mazamas and invent our own as well.

Photos

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We finally got some snow in Portland that shut the city down for 2 weeks.

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Sara and I had grand plans of going up into the mountains to go hotspringing and camping. The cold front that said it was coming with 7 degree weather talked us out of it. Instead we slept in and went to Dish for breakfast and then headed up North to get in a good hike. This time the weather talked to Sara's shoes and said they shouldn't hang out. So instead of hiking we walked over a bridge to look at the river and headed back to town to visit REI and buy some shoes for Sara.

Sara had talked about this mythical mountain bike park under the bridges of Seattle. I thought it sounded like the Troll that lives under bridges. This, like The Troll was true. We will be making trips over there to get ready for, well, get ready for talking about mountain biking.

We celebrated our conquest of nature that night by having dinner at a Japanese restaurant that cooked their food on stones. They were quite friendly and even did the "Irashayimase" when people came in. It was quiet good. The beer helped out as well.

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Today we went to BFE to go shooting guns and chew terbaccy. I skipped on the tobacco but shot a few guns, I even got some of the elusive pudding pops. Us:1 / Terrorists:0

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We went into the Gorge to hike up Munra Point. It was a perfect day and the trail was fairly dry. This didn't stop me from falling on my ass on the way down though. We saw salmon in the river (or sturgeon if you ask Matt.) The top of the hike is the coolest location in the Gorge that I've been on, but you can see for yourself below.

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I've been continuing my weekly hikes in Forest Park to try and get in some sembalance of shapeness. As it is I just see joggers who keep flying by me.

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Thanksgiving was spent at the beach and I'm proud to say we ate 5 pies in 1 1/2 days.

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Ingrid's Grandma was sick last week and Ingrid went down to Arizona to be with her. She passed on Tuesday. I went down on Thursday morning and we went up North to Jerome via Prescott and then on to the Grand Canyon.

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Jerome

We drove into Jerome just as the Sun set and the Moon rose over the distant cliffs. We lucked out and got a room at the Mile High Inn in the downtown, they even gave us a discount on the room.After settling into the upstairs, we went to dinner at the Grapes Restaurant and then spent the rest of the night walking around taking photos of the ghost town.

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Grand Canyon

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Night

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I bracketed a few shots in the Grand Canyon and used some HDR/tonemapping software. While it doesn't magically make photos amazing, I think it can add some nice depth. The 2nd picture is the normal exposure of the 1st HDRed photo.

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