A couple of weeks ago I had one of those weekends that remind me why I love living and photographing in the Pacific Northwest.

My wife Stacey and I had planned a backcountry ski trip on Mount Rainier with friends that Sunday. As we headed north Saturday the weather was so perfect that we decided to stop by Sauvie Island on the Columbia river just north of Portland to get a little kiteboarding in.

Arriving at our local kite beach we found a number of our friends pumping up kites, laying out lines and heading out into the river on nice steady winds...