There are powerful, crystallized feelings that are experienced when skiing and snowboarding the backcountry of Arizona. They are mysterious, fantastic, gigantic, fleeting, and always require attention. Most backcountry photographs capture a thin cross-section or single layer of these feelings. This project was born as an attempt to explore new ways to convey those feelings.

The setup began with immense planning around the position of the Milky Way rising in relation to Fremont Peak depending on the time of night. Under the warm winter sun we began by hiking and then snowshoeing up to the inner basin arriving just before sundown. Troy continued on in the waning light and begin ascending up the north side avalanche chute to prepare for the light painting once it was dark enough. Abe remained in the middle valley and set up two cameras capturing alternate angles of the mountain. Over the next few hours communicating via radio we went back and forth and getting the angle and perspective just right.

We had planned to...