Total redo on the day 71 photo. My initial attraction was the sky, not the cedar trees. And that's what I focused on. Here's what I have learned from this:
1. iso 800 and slow shutter speed is the perfect recipe for noise in the shadow areas, and lots of it . . . LR and Define take most out but not all.
2. Never assume that you won't need your tripod.
3. If you start with a bad combination to begin with (#1) above, deghosting in photomatix pro will only make it worse.
4. Photos can be salvaged if you listen to your inner voice and stick to your vision.
So, here's my redo. I reduced the number of exposures I used for the HDR, the trees were still dark but the sky was noise-free, so I simply cropped out the dark, basically useless part of the photo and salvaged the sky part.
View attachment 2004