No, it isn't. It depends what we call a 'hdr'. If a 'hdr' is something Photomatix style, then it is not a hdr.
The difference between the sky and ground was 3 EV. I made two exposures: one for sky and one for the ground. Then I manually put them together, manually masking sky from one and ground from the other. The boundary between those two layers goes along the base of the trees in the background. I was surprised that the sun rays were not affected by the layer boundary.