I'm not going to lie
After years of raveling all over the west, I feel a little bit sad now that my time in the US is about to end
That's why a couple of weeks ago
I decided to pack my things and drive more than 1,000 miles to South Dakota
a trip that took me over 16 hours in two days to complete
With winter storms still hitting the north
I had a narrow window to do such a long trip and avoid them while I was in the road
once I got there though, there would be no way to escape the big one
a blizzard that caught me in the park, where I found myself stuck for a couple of days
with record-breaking temperatures and snowfall
But that was just one of the many difficulties I had to face in one of my toughest road trip yet
On my first night in the badlands, let's call it day zero
I went on a short hike and took some snapshots and just one film photo
The forecast kept changing for the worse
I was expecting six inches of snow during day two, but the latest predictions were talking about 15 and even 18 inches
Good morning guys
Welcome to the badlands national park
That's right
So I got here yesterday at night
After a very very long drive from Indiana, it was a thousand miles, 16 hours
But I finally made it to South Dakota
This is Western South Dakota, almost to Wyoming, and yeah as you can see it's a national park of
Badlands. I'm gonna be here for five full days and six nights, so I think it's gonna be enough time to explore the park
Hopefully take some good shots
There's one problem though, and it's the forecast for tomorrow. There is a blizzard warning
11 to 17 inches of snow expected
Yeah tomorrow, I'll probably be staying in the car
but the rest of my stay here should be nice
So it might be a good thing that I'm getting
cloudy, sunny and blizzard weather in just five days
So I have a little bit of everything
I'm gonna be approaching this trip in a slightly different way
I not only brought my film equipment, but I also brought digital equipment, digital camera with different lenses
So I'm gonna be taking black and white film photos and digital color photos
today, it's about getting to know this place a little bit more
scouting a little bit, drive through the park
See what it has to offer or what I can expect to know what to do in the next few days, so let's go
Okay, so I'm here at the
Pretty much still the beginning of my first hike
And I found this
This is Saddle Pass. I think you are supposed to go through here somehow
So on the side of the cliff or the side of the canyon
I just can't it's very slippery and I can't with two tripods and two cameras
And I don't feel like climbing rocks right now
I have a lot of gear and also there are snakes and that's not something I want to do right now, so
I think I can get to the top using other two trails that hopefully are not
like this so far
failure
I'm out of the park now
Well, at the entrance
I found these fields here that are pretty cool, a little bit far away from the Badlands
So I took three shots
With the bronica here using these
track
tracks
You're not supposed to drive off-road
But someone did, I guess, so I mean they help for the photo least because they are like a guideline
otherwise it would be boring so I took two compositions with the track and
one without the tracks
And we'll see how that works
During this first pass of the park, I was amazed by the landscape
But the highlight of the day was actually the wildlife deer bighorn sheep bison and prairie dogs were a great contrast to the desolated landscape
It's been a long day so far it's only 5 p.m.. But I've been awake for 12 hours already
I guess this is the calm before the storm
I mean "calm" because it's very very windy it was really hard to cook dinner here
We are expecting between 9 and 13 inches if not more
Let me check because it changes a lot from one minute to the next. Between 9 and 14 inches tomorrow Friday
anyway
All that snow is gonna come with high wind too, so that means that I'm gonna be spending
Pretty much the whole day tomorrow here in the car. I have a lot of
Yeah, let's call it shit because it's shit, with me, so I'll be fine. I have food. I have water. I have books
Saturday's gonna be just fine
I mean it's gonna be very cold, so the snow is not gonna melt
It's gonna be here with us for a little bit, so we'll see if I can actually drive to somewhere else in the park
But if I can't I also have plans I can just walk there
because the weather is gonna be just fine. It's gonna be cold
and probably full of snow, but it's gonna be just partly cloudy not very windy so
I'll be able to walk over there and probably take some
Hopefully cool photos of these Badlands covered in snow, but yeah, that's about it
I don't know how to feel about this just yet. I don't know if I should be
concerned, I don't know if I should be happy because I'm gonna get special conditions here
I always say that
Landscape photography is all about the conditions, and the more special the better the photos, and that is true
So I'm very tired
but I still have a little bit more than two hours before sunset so I think I'm gonna drive to the park and
Get even more tired so I can get good sleep
just trying to take advantage of my last hours being able to actually walk out and
Do something right before the the storm comes here, so yeah
This is it for today
See you tomorrow from the car
Thanks for watching, and see you tomorrow