Today Emily and I drove out to Sauvie Island to check it out. This is an island created by the split of the Willamette River into the Multnomah Channel and it’s entrance into the Columbia River. It’s small at about 26,000 acres and has only about 1200 residents but it is less than 10 miles from our house. We had heard that the island contains a lot of wildlife, especially birds, so we decided to drive out in the winter when the leaves aren’t on the trees to obstruct our views. Read on…
Emily and I went to the Annual Columbia Chapter of ASPRS meeting at the Bridgeport Brewery. It was the first meeting I’ve attended and I thought it might be dry and just a bunch of industry talk but instead it was really great. There were general announcements of office position changes but then we had an amazing presentation by a master brewer about the history of beer styles. We got to sample some amazing beers and also get a walk-through of the entire brewery. 
Emily and I were able to meet a bunch of people in the remote sensing industry and had a great meal as well. I definitely plan on getting more involved in the chapter going forward, especially since one of their main focuses will be the emerging drone acquisition market. 
Chris Holm had come up the night before to hang out with us and catch up. We were all excited about doing a bit of skiing on Sunday and were planning on heading to Cooper Spur to skin up and ski some of the Eliot glacier on the North side of the mountain where we figured there might be some snow. Read on…
This weekend was supposed to be our Annual Maiden Hut backcountry ski weekend but with this winter being one of the worst snow seasons in Oregon’s history it wasn’t possible. In fact we could have hiked in to the hut but where’s the fun in that? So far this year Ski Bowl only opened for about a week and Willamette Pass and Hoodoo haven’t opened (they would never open this season - I wrote this in July :). So yeah, I had pretty much written off any snow activity for the year. Read on….
