Marilyn, Bob, and I hiked at San Tan Mountain Regional Park.  Bob and I hiked a loop of 11.3 miles while Marilyn hiked a slightly shorter loop of 9.6 miles.

There was an equestrian event at the park while we were hiking; we saw several groups of horses along the way. This park is popular with hikers and mountain bikers too.

This is Marilyn hiking up a steep section of the Gold Mine Trail.

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This is a little peak that’s accessed off the Gold Mine Trail.  We hiked up to the top of this peak in addition to doing the loop. There’s also a grave site along the way; we visited the two graves (not shown) as well.

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A view from the Dynamite Trail:

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There are a number of conical peaks in the area. We saw this one while hiking the Dynamite Trail.

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This is the same photo as above made with Topaz Impression.

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Horses on the San Tan Trail…

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Another photo made (mostly) with Topaz Impression.  It blurs facial details more than I wanted. I restored some of these details by using the “detail” layer after doing a frequency separation on the base image. I masked in the some of the detail layer (and a small amount of the corresponding “blur” layer) when I wanted to restore facial details.

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A mountain biker on the San Tan Trail.

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These women were sweeping the trail, cleaning up the pink ribbons marking the route for the equestrians.  We were fortunate enough to see them galloping theirs horses as we hiked.

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