Alabama Hills, California – November 2011

On the first evening of our Death Valley trip, we arrived in Lone Pine, a quiet town nestled in Owens Valley. After quickly checking into our hotel, we made our way to the nearby Alabama Hills just in time for sunset. Famous for their otherworldly landscape and cinematic legacy—“Transformers 2” was filmed here—the Alabama Hills feel both ancient and futuristic. Though they evoke science fiction, the boulders themselves are over 100 to 200 million years old, sculpted by eons of weathering into fantastical forms.

From Lone Pine, we took Whitney Portal Road north. Just 4 kilometers in, we turned onto Movie Road and drove another 3 kilometers to a Y-intersection. A right turn led us to a simple dirt parking lot and the start of our Alabama Hills hike. Though the terrain feels vast, most of its iconic formations are accessible within a half-hour walk, making it a paradise for photographers. Daytime offers dazzling colors and dramatic vistas, while nighttime transforms the rocks into silhouettes beneath a blanket of stars. Here, the Milky Way truly feels close enough to touch.

The photos in this post are from the first evening and the fourth morning of our journey, taken at various locations within the Alabama Hills.

Golden shrubs and surreal rock formations greeted us along the road, with the Sierra Nevada's snow-capped peaks rising faintly in the distance. After hundreds of kilometers on the road, autumn’s colors felt like a well-earned reward—rich golds unmarred by any other hues.

As the sun climbed over the mountains, jagged peaks caught the light with sharp drama—my first experiment with HDR photography. The golden foliage clustered along a stream at the foot of the hills, and towering trees formed natural frames, perfectly aligning with Mount Whitney in the distance.

Morning brought a vivid contrast: vibrant foliage below, snowy ridges above, all under a flawless blue sky. The scenery demanded frequent stops; we took nearly an hour to cover a few hundred meters.

The sunset of the first day brought an entirely different beauty. From Stonehenge-like rock formations, we looked out onto breathtaking vistas drenched in amber. The HDR post-processing was a learning curve, but the results captured the magic.

Backlit by the setting sun, the boulders took on dramatic silhouettes. The interplay of nearby and distant outlines echoed scenes from sci-fi films. Cracks between massive rocks framed fiery clouds, and the colors shifted rapidly—from golden to pink to deep blue.

We nicknamed one rock “the conch” and another “the locomotive fossil.” Lichens thrived on boulders shaped like fragments of the human body. As darkness settled, the sky blossomed with stars. With a 30-second exposure, the Milky Way shimmered faintly. After two minutes, star trails began to form, tracing arcs above the shadowed hills.

Though the mountains stood in deep shadow, an occasional passing car would light up the landscape, reminding us we weren’t entirely alone in this vast, beautiful silence.