Eventful day for my mail!

Fall has officialy set in... ugggg.

2008 Starvation Ridge 24 hour race (Part 2)

*Note* All the images from this race are available for viewing and purchasing HERE

Yesterday's post on the Starvation Ridge 24 hour race was my most popular post ever, it was circulated all over a bunch of different forums on the internet which is cool... glad everyone is enjoying the pics! A lot of folks wanted to see more images, especially the riders who were at the race who I think want to get lucky and find an image of themselves, haha.

So here is the second edit of the photos I picked as my favorites. I don't think these images are quite as good as the first round, but I'll let you decide.

Note this post is part 2 of my photos, click here for part 1!
*Note* All the images from this race are available for viewing and purchasing HERE

No captions or descriptions this time because I need to sleep now!

Note this post is part 2 of my photos, click here for part 1!
*Note* All the images from this race are available for viewing and purchasing HERE

2008 Starvation Ridge 24 hour race!

*Note* All the images from this race are available for viewing and purchasing HERE

This weekend I headed out to Goldendale, WA for the annual Starvation Ridge 24 hour Dirt Bike race. This was my first time out there and I was impressed! So much fun. Basically they build a totally custom 22 mile race course in an area of about 800 acres (the middle of nowhere). The course has everything from slow rocky areas to straights where your pinned at 90 MPH, canyons, gulches, ponds, hill climbs, whoops, 180 degree turns, track through barns... you get the idea. One lap took the average rider about an hour!

I was going to compete but to race at night (teams race for 24 hours straight) you need to have big lights on your bike and they are quite the investment, so I'm waiting until next year to make that plunge.
So instead of racing I signed up to be a sweep rider which is cool because I got to ride the course much as I wanted and I got to help out a lot of riders. One guy I found crashed really bad on his bike and ended up getting life-flighted out to a hospital. I helped lots of other riders get their broken down bikes back to the pits, and helped a guy at night find his way back to the pits when all his lights went down and he was stranded in the pitch black night. Not fun for him!

I managed to take a lot of photos too... almost 2,000! I just had a chance to edit though some so here are 28 of my favorties... hopefully I'll have time to post more later!

Note this post is part 1 of my photos, click here for part 2!
*Note* All the images from this race are available for viewing and purchasing HERE

Sunrise on Mt. Hood as I was driving out there in the wee hours of the morning-

The starting lineup-

A nice moment when a dad is saying bye to his girls- :)

I climbed on top of someones RV for this shot of the start-

And their off!!

One of the checkpoint trailers and a volunteer looking pretty bored-

Racing shots-

The track went through this barn, it was a tight fit for the bikes but some guys hauled through there!

This was in the evening right after sunset. The wind had died down and there was SO MUCH DUST the riders could barely see especially on this straightaway-

Some sunset action-

6 minute long exposure with bikes buzzing all over the course. It was a really cool site to see this... hundreds of bikes racing all at once in such a huge area.

Another zoomed in long exposure of the bikes buzzing around and going through the barn-

Sunrise on Sunday morning, a long exposure of a racer taking a turn with Mt. Adams in the background.

Sunrise action-

This was a bit of a hillclimb and the dirt was soooo soft, it was literally the texture of flour! Made for some nice shots of roosts (dirtbikers term for dirt spitting out from the back tire)

Showing off for my camera... I like that. :)

A couple straightaway shots before I packed up my camera and did some riding myself!

Can't wait for next year!

Note this post is part 1 of my photos, click here for part 2!
*Note* All the images from this race are available for viewing and purchasing HERE

A view from White Salmon

Bethany and I were exploring around a little bit yesterday on the Washington side trying to find a certain hike, we couldn't find it so we preceded to check out some real estate on the bluff with the most INCREDIBLE views... of course WAY out of our price range! But wow, even though living over there isn't quite as desirable, if you had a place on the cliff overlooking the Gorge, Hood River, and Mt. Hood, I think that would make up for it. The views are some of the most gorgeous I have ever seen, anywhere!

I didn't take any photos from up on the cliff but did take this one on the way home down by the White Salmon River. The time of day is about 1 hour after sunset when it's basically dark out and you have to do long exposures to record anything. Believe it or not, the sky above the Mount Hood looked black but I could tell there was still a hint of color that could be captured. I did a 2 minute exposure and it's amazing what the camera can capture that your eye doesn't see.

What you see is Mt. Hood towering over the Westside of Hood River, Columbia River separating Oregon & Washington, and I'm standing on the bank of the White Salmon river which flows right into the Columbia. The little bridge is for trains and cars to cruise right over the White Salmon river.

I don't get it

Who actually buys stuff from places like Best Buy and Circuit City??? The only reason to ever buy anything from those places is if you need something immediately and you have a store near you. I've noticed that Best Buy's prices are CONSISTENTLY 50% higher than any other online or retail competitor, FOR THE EXACT SAME THING. So why buy from there unless you have money to burn and could care less!?

Today I needed to order two 1 terabyte hard drives (seems to be a monthly occurrence these days) so I spent a few minutes shopping around online and found that as usual, frys.com had the best price and even free shipping on Seagate Freeagent Pro 1TB drives. Prices at 160 bucks, 320 for two. Not bad. Cruise on over to BestBuy.com and they are a whopping $350 EACH!! WOW... what a price difference! I paid 30 bucks less for twice the amount, and free shipping. It just amazes me that anyone buys anything at Best Buy...

Or take a Canon EOS 5D camera. Great price at Amazon.com- $2,000
Or, buy it from Best Buy for a whopping $1,300 more at $3,300 (same price the camera was introduced at in 2005!!)

I just don't get it. Do you?

frys-

best buy-

campfire with bethany

Today was so gorgeous in Hood River, sunny and high 60's! It kinda felt like a bonus day of nice weather because it's already getting cold, especially at night. Bethany and I are catching up on lots of work so the day was spent inside the office, but around sunset time I talked Bethany into hopping on my motorcycle and cruising up some dirt roads to take in a nice warm sunset. The sunset wasn't spectacular but the magic hour light afterward sure was!
I built a little campfire for something to do and we both sat there and poked it with sticks for a good hour or two. It's funny how campfires are so amusing and anyone can stare blankly at it for hours and never get bored.
I shot a few photos with the self timer of us two and my beautiful dirt bike. Kinda looks like a Honda Ad eh?

Another moonrise

I went out and photographed the moonrise again last night, it's pretty rare when the moon rises and the sun sets at within an hour of each other so I'm trying to take advantage of the opportunity to shoot the sunset light with the light from the rising moon. If done right you can get some amazing photos.
Last night there was some could cover so I didn't get many direct views of the moon, but still shot what I could.
I rode my dirtbike up into the Post Canyon Hills to get some nice views over the city. Anyone want to go camping with me up here soon before it gets too cold? There is an incredible clearing at the top of a hill with a perfect little campfire ring, plenty of room to set up tents, and views of Mt Hood, Mt Adams, and Mt St. Helens!

Moon behind the clouds just as it was rising-

Few moments later it came out a bit more-

A 2 minute exposure looking out over the Hood River Valley-

Full moon over the Columbia River

I've taken so many photos from this spot, especially on full moon nights. These were shot last night. I'm usually always alone when I take photos up there so thanks for the company Bethany and Amos. BTW this is the first time ever that I've blogged pics before Amos. He's fast!

We got on the topic of cougars because there have been a couple sightings up there recently and Amos posted a quote from Bethany on his twittter that I thought was pretty funny "If i was a cougar i'd eat me too." - beth

Here's a few pics I took-

For this one I didn't enlarge the moon at all, but I did join two exposures because to get detail in the moon and hillside thats what you gotta do. :)

Wide angle view of the Columbia Gorge River looking east. Washington on the left and Oregon on the right. :)

Zoomed into the taillights on Interstate 84.

Another dirtbike ride at Gifford Pinchot, Mt. Adams

Wednesday I went riding with Rob Wymore who founded Real Wind in Hood River. The ride was incredible... the weather couldn't have been more perfect and the trails were in good shape. Rob is an amazing rider, he goes multiple times per week by himself and rides like 100 miles of singletrack trails in just a few hours. Riding with Rob I was pretty beat by mile 50 or so, but I definitely want to build up some endurance skills so all in all we rode something like 120 miles, I think 95 of it was on singletrack trails. It's Sunday now and I'm still sore, haha.

I brought my camera again and spent a few minutes taking photos but I had to be quick because we had lots of ground to cover. I want to get back up here again soon just to shoot photos though!

Mt. Adams with a fresh layer of snow:

Jumbo rock-

Mt Adams in the distance-

My mom loves this photo except for the dirtbike-

Rob cruising around so I could grab a few photos-

This was pretty scary, going down this icy hill I lost balance and almost went over a pretty large cliff. Luckily my bike balanced right on the edge and I had a little ledge to land on... that was way too close for comfort! I would have survived just fine but I'm not sure how the bike would have held up.

Mt Adams poking out of the clouds at Sunset-