The sky at night without light blight: Photographer captures amazing images from some of America's remotest locations

• Brad Goldpaint imaged the night sky as it illuminated locales of exquisite beauty along the U.S. western seaboard
  

By Daily Mail Reporter
Updated: 08:07 EDT, 6 November 2011

These stunning images of the night sky were captured during a marathon 1,300-mile trek across some of America's roughest terrain.

During his adventures hiking down the U.S. western seaboard, Brad Goldpaint went to great lengths to record the natural beauty of the night sky as it illuminated locales of exquisite natural beauty.

The 29-year-old perched on a ledge with a 1,000ft shear drop, battled through a desert and clambered up mountains.

Swirl: Photographer Brad Goldpaint used a time-lapse technique to capture this astounding image of stars in the night sky over Arches National Park in Thompson, Utah

Away from the light pollution emitted by major cities, his plan was to reveal the true beauty of the stars, the moon and planets as they cast their light over natural landscapes.

Mr Goldpaint trekked along the Pacific Crest Trail, a gargantuan and physically demanding journey that passes through national parks as it winds down from British Colombia, Canada, in the north to the California border with Mexico in the south.

Some of his images reveal the movement of stars across the night sky and are the result of using time-lapse photographic equipment.

Other photos layer up to 115 images on top of each other to highlight details not visible to the naked eye.

Mr Goldpaint trekked along the Pacific Crest Trail, a gargantuan and physically demanding journey that passes through national parks as it winds down from British Colombia, Canada, in the north to the California border with Mexico in the south

Mr Goldpaint, from California, said: 'Two great passions of mine are wilderness travel and the night sky. I am most interested in capturing inspirational elements within our natural world.

'I discovered an escape from the concrete jungles of urban life while travelling throughout the Pacific North and South-West.

'Two years ago I suffered the sudden loss of my mother and what I thought was meaningful work, drastically changed for me. I began to question my life and the direction I wanted to take with it.

'I decided to put on my backpack and experience Mother Nature's pristine finest by hiking and photographing 1,300miles of the Pacific Crest Trail.'

He added: 'Outdoor photography soon became a daily ritual of documenting and communicating my experiences - from capturing fields of wildflowers in the Mojave Desert to vast landscapes from some of the highest peaks on the John Muir Trail in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

'In addition, I have been known to willingly perch myself on a 1,000ft shear vertical ledge, wade in knee deep snow-melt, or sneak up dark trails with eyes staring back at me from the glare of my headlamp, to get the perfect perspective and composition for a shot.'

Mother Nature magnified: The sky at night illuminates the Middle McCloud Falls in northern California