Lost Pins and Alien Landscapes

Sometimes the best landscape photography trips begin with delays, uncertainty, exhaustion, and a white-knuckled drive through a herd of more deer and elk than you can count.

This trip started later than planned. No biggie. I was meeting up with two buddies on location, and by the time I finally arrived, all of our sights were already set on tomorrow. Still, getting there felt like its own adventure.

Along the drive, I easily passed a mix of over a hundred deer and elk along or directly on the road. I’ve never seen so many in one stretch. It got to the point where I was gripping the steering wheel with both hands, convinced I was eventually going to hit one. Every bend in the road felt like another potential disaster waiting in the darkness. Thankfully, luck was on my side, and the Five Billion Star Hotel rolled into camp untouched.

After arriving, I caught a few ZZZs in the back of the Delica before waking to the sun blasting through the windows and directly into my face. The day ahead was predicted to be hot, sunny, and less than ideal for photography. Still, there’s always something worthwhile about scouting unfamiliar terrain, so I took a stroll through an area known as Three Wings.

Then (March 2024)

Now (May 2026)(Cellphone Image)

The rock formations had noticeably changed since my last visit two years ago. Erosion had softened edges, shifted shapes, and subtly altered the landscape. That’s one thing about these desert badlands. They’re never truly static. Even places that seem permanent slowly evolve.

As I wandered around in the morning light, I found a composition I wanted to revisit after dark. It involved a striking rock formation, open skies, and what I hoped would eventually become a starlit backdrop beneath the Milky Way.

Three (Likely Lost) Amigos | Hiking Bob and Don Savage

Later in the day, I met up with my two buddies, and together we decided to make the hot trek across the Badlands toward the Alien Egg Hatchery.

Midday is not typically when I enjoy shooting landscapes. Give me Blue Hour, sunrise, sunset, or stars any day of the week. Midday desert light can be harsh, contrasty, and unforgiving. But sometimes photography trips aren’t just about maximizing ideal light. Sometimes the camaraderie is worth more than the conditions.

So off we went. Along the way, I found a couple of spots that I would like to return to and shoot in better lighting, some petrified wood, and what I thought looked like a dinosaur head hoodoo.

Petrified Wood

Dinosaur Head Hoodoo

Naturally, we also managed to turn a straightforward hike into a longer scenic route because, well… anything for the memories. lol.

The heat was relentless, the terrain felt endless, and exhaustion slowly crept in with every step. Still, there’s something oddly rewarding about embracing less-than-perfect conditions instead of constantly fighting them. Landscape photography trips are rarely glamorous. Most people only see the final polished image online. They don’t see the sweat, the wandering, the uncertainty, the sleep deprivation, or the occasional questioning of your own sanity while hiking across a desert in midday heat, carrying camera gear.

I still came away with a few midday images I genuinely liked.

Alien Egg Hatchery on a warm day with clear skies.

Alien egg hatchery bw abstract 1

Alien egg hatchery bw abstract 2

Alien egg hatchery bw abstract 3

Alien egg hatchery abstract 1

Alien egg hatchery abstract 2

Alien egg hatchery abstract 3

Afterward, we drove out toward the Alien Throne.

This is where things got interesting.

My vague memory of how to reach the location, along with my digital map markers, directly contradicted my buddy’s printed directions. Naturally, this led to some debate, a little wandering, and eventually a growing confidence on my part that I actually was in the correct area despite what the paper directions suggested.

Eventually, we settled in and made camp for a while.

Honestly, the Five Billion Star Hotel shines during moments like these. Chairs out. Food cooking. Stove running. Refrigerator stocked. Awning deployed. Internet available in the middle of nowhere. It becomes transportation, office, restaurant, and hotel all wrapped into one dusty little overland box.

We sat around eating, talking about photography, discussing routes, and generally recovering from the earlier hike while waiting for darkness to arrive.

Normally, I like to shoot from Blue Hour well into the night. But when you travel with others, compromises happen. Plans shift. Negotiations occur. All of us were already pretty wiped out from the day, and I personally was running on maybe five hours of sleep total.

Eventually, we geared up and headed into the darkness.

That’s when my own map pin betrayed us.

The initial pin I was navigating toward was never intended to be the actual hiking destination. It was simply a generic pin I had dropped earlier as a rough driving reference. Unfortunately, there it sat on the map waiting to confuse everyone involved. Once I realized what had happened, I deleted it and repinned the actual location we intended to reach.

Then the real wandering began.

Under headlamp light, we scrambled through the darkness, navigating around obstacles we could barely see. Every time I’ve visited this area has been at night, and I’ve repeatedly wanted to lay down a solid navigable GPS track through the terrain. The problem is that recording a track in darkness often creates a zigzagging mess because you’re constantly avoiding unseen obstacles at the last second.

A proper clean route would need to be recorded during daylight.

Hopefully next time.

A good laid track would probably save thirty minutes of wandering around out there in the dark.

Still, eventually, we arrived.

And it was worth every bit of it.

The landscape genuinely looked otherworldly. Between the strange rock formations, the surrounding badlands, and the appropriately named Alien Throne itself, the entire place felt more like another planet than Earth.

We used low-level lighting to softly illuminate portions of the foreground while patiently waiting for the Milky Way to rotate into position overhead. Above us were perfectly clear skies, a subtle hint of air glow, comfortable temperatures, and silence stretching across the desert.

A gently lit Alien Throne and friends in front of a Milky Way filled sky.

This is the part people imagine when they think about landscape photography adventures.

What they don’t imagine is everything surrounding it.

The exhaustion.
The wrong turns.
The heat.
The negotiations.
The wandering around in darkness wondering if you’re actually headed the right direction.
The sleep deprivation.
The endless dirt roads.

But somehow, all of those things become inseparable from the final image itself.

Eventually, sometime deep into the night, we packed up and started the hike back.

For the most part, the return trip was uneventful. My navigation process out there is usually pretty simple. Orient yourself, pick a point on the horizon, walk toward it, then periodically stop to reevaluate and validate your heading.

Simple works.

By the time we finally crawled out of the desert, it was somewhere around 0400.

Exhausted, I drove back toward the morning’s shooting location. By the time I got settled in, hints of sunrise were already beginning to creep into the sky. I caught a few more ZZZs, woke refreshed, and eventually made the drive home, somehow arriving before both of my buddies despite everything.

The photographs mattered, of course.

But as usual, the memories surrounding them may matter even more.