The Milky Way pierces through the dark sky above Sunset Point.

Chasing a full week of work with a long 4-6 hour drive followed by 2:00 am wake up calls is no easy task, but usually the best results take the greatest effort.  At the start of Milky Way season I traveled to Bryce Canyon, which has one off the clearest and darkest skies in the United States.  The heat had begun to spread in the daytime hours, but night was still and cool.  On my way down the Navajo Trail I passed another photographer who had stayed out past sunset, and from the smile on his face I knew it would be an incredible night of shooting. Hiking outside in pitch darkness without even moonlight to guide your eyes is still an unsettling experience, but that uneasiness went away when I set up my tripod.   The Milky Way was visible to the naked eye as it noticeably floated through the night sky; its stillness only broken by periodic shooting stars.  Until that night I had never seen the universe so clear and so many stars twinkling in the dark.  Spring 2018 was the first season I really devoted myself to shooting the Milky Way but based on the beauty in our national parks in the silence of the night it will only be the first of many to come.