Bye bye USA

The American chapter comes to its end. Another beautiful year, this time in Portland, Oregon, exploring what the west part of USA had to offer.

I feel so fortunate that I had the chance of meeting so many beautiful people, definitely the most interesting beings I've comed across in my short life.

It seems quite obvious that the focus of the past year has been in outdoors, but the truth is that many of the little special moments occurred in Portland, while working in random projects, trying new things, making a lot of mistakes, and learning from a few of them.

This is a small summary of my past year in Oregon:

August:

The trend of the month was biking and swimming

 I got to see the waterfalls of the Gorge

 And of course the coast

 While rafting I rescued the inflatable alligator, and I adopted as "Fred"

 I discovered some waves

We celebrated the birthday of Jaime!

September:

As the heat kept in Oregon I took Fred to some water trips

I got to see more waterfalls

 The surfing was pretty good and uncrowded

 And the coast kept amazing me

 This evening I got to surf with dolphins, grey whales and sea lions, pretty sketchy but speechless at the same time

 We danced salsa

Photo: Matthew

 And I did some hikes with Marcia

October:

October started with the visit of papa superzuri. We did some great trips

He took couple of pictures of me surfing!

I hiked next to glaciers

I did a trip around central Oregon, by that time there was nobody in the mountains

Blue pool in McKenzie River

 Sunrise in Crater Lake

November: 

It was the month of leaves on the ground. It took a lot of work to clean them but the city was beautiful

 Sunrise over Portland

 Traveling through Washington I accidentally found a nice wave

And it made me really happy

December:

December started with a trip to Seattle and Vancouver BC. It didn't stop raining for a second, so it felt a semi-failure

Tomas in Lynn Canyon, Canada

The surf got really cold

 But I kept finding new waves

 And suddenly all the snow came from nowhere

The first 16 days of the ski season I skied 10 days...not bad

 It was powder snow every single day

January:

And the ski party kept running. Skiing 4 days a week felt like a dream come true. Powder everywhere!

 Groomers were also enjoyable

 And more new snow

Dale ripping

 I got to ski superbowl run, which doesn't open every year, so I felt pretty fortunate

 Jenny in Heather

 And I finally got a photo skiing (Photo: Grant)

As dad came to visit me I showed him a closed run that cost me the season pass in Meadows. This was the run 

February:

Without a ski pass I went to Trillium Lake to meditate while crosscountry skiing

 But soon I discovered Ski Bowl, the funnest ski resort in the area

And Timberline, the iconic beautiful ski resort

 As I got my Passport robbed I had to travel to the Spanish consulate, in San Francisco. That was a great excuse to check the city and the snow of Tahoe too!

 Georgina was a great host and guide

March:

March arrived full of snow

André came to visit me, and we drove to Redwood NP

 Exploring the beautiful coast of southern Oregon

I also got to ski Mt Bachelor and Hoodoo, so much fun

April:

April started upside down. Suddenly it was super hot, it felt like summer

 So it was great skiing in t-shirt

 It was tulip season!

 Ski Bowl closed on a day like this. Nobody skiing and still great groomer runs

 ...and the best part: swimming season was ON. Skiing in the morning and swimming in the afternoon. April definitely was the best month of the year.

At some point while I was skiing I got the citation for my graduation in the faculty of Bilbao, for the Engineering degree...obviously I was too busy!

May:

May started with the visit of Ana

 And skiing kept ON

 I got to check Yosemite. So nice!

And here I missed my second graduation, this one in Chicago, for the CS Masters degree...again too busy hiking! :-)

June:

June was a crazy mixture
Skiing

Beach

 More skiing with Marta

 Roadtrip with Nish, from LA to Colorado

 Grand Canyon quick stop

 Somewhere in east Utah

 Hiking with Georgina

 And more skiing

July:

July started with a trip to Orcas Island, WA

Two weeks later I drove to the Wallowas, in NE Oregon

Painted hills

 And guess what...the skiing kept ON

Chris carving

And the surf was pretty decent

August:

Pretty weird month, very busy but with some glorious highlights
Nish came for an express visit and we got to hike in Mt Hood

 I built an Olaf (Photo: Nish)

 And swam in Trillium Lake (Photo: Nish)

I heard something about perseids so I just drove to Trillium Lake to check them out. I couldn't take pictures (a tripod would had helped) but it was amazing. Not much sleep though haha

 The week after, Tomas came, and we hiked another part of Mt Hood

And we swam more in Trillium Lake

And here we are...one year later ready for more adventures!