After planning my trip for weeks to coincide with the stars, lack of moon, and weather I ventured out at 10pm and drove through the Elk inhabited land of Jasper Arkansas. As I reached the park that straddles the buffalo river I made my way in the dark, through the woods about 15 mins until I reached this spot I had been spotting on Google earth. It was pristine. I set up my tent for some cliche foreground attention and then set my camera bag & tripod down to catch a breather. Every sound out here makes you jump; there are bears, bobcats, wild boar, elk, and cougars have been spotted which isn't a surprise considering the vastness of the place, lack of humans, and plentiful food. I set my Benro up as low and wide as I could and clipped on weights just for good measure. Pulled out my Nikon D850 and attached my prized 20mm f1.8. I framed the shot using my smartphone camera as I always do and when I thought I had it I finally positioned my camera. I calculated my shot and took a few test images with and without stops added. I settled on f1.8 13sec with half stop -. I thought about stacking some images, the d850 has an amazing stacking software built in to save on fuss but I decided to get it in one frame and deal with the sharpness later. It was pitch black about 1am when I decided the conditions were perfect. I attached my remote shutter, flipped the mirror up and waited a full 3 seconds before opening the shutter. As I looked at the preview I could hear rustling in the woods coming right at me no more than 100 yards away. I was expecting a bear or elk at the least but it was more photographers headed down. Their flashlights breached the wood line and I knew I wouldn't get another shot off. I packed my equipment up, chatted the others for a bit, then left to give them an opportunity to create basically the same shot to fuel the skyline cliche even more.