A badland formation rises from the sage near Interstate 80 in southwest Wyoming. (Mike Moore/facebook.com/michaelsmoorephotography/)

With its sagebrush seas and broken badlands, southwest Wyoming might not meet the mainstream standards for landscape beauty. But there’s a striking appeal to the austere features in that corner of the state. 

That’s what caught the eye of Powell photographer Mike Moore on a recent drive along Interstate 80 after a trip to Utah.  

“It happened to be one of those days that the clouds were really beautiful,” Moore said, and the sunlight creeping in and out from behind them created arresting contrasts in the landscape’s contours. Amid those conditions, Moore pulled over between Evanston and Green River and made this image of a crumbly badland formation rising from the sage. 

“It’s just kind of an otherworldly landscape,” Moore said, adding that in Wyoming, “we have a lot of that. I think it’s kind of neat.”

Support Wyoming photography — donate to WyoFile today

Katie Klingsporn is WyoFile's managing editor. She is a journalist and word geek who has been writing about life in the West for 15 years. Her pieces have appeared in Adventure Journal, National Geographic...

Join the Conversation

1 Comment

Want to join the discussion? Fantastic, here are the ground rules: * Provide your full name — no pseudonyms. WyoFile stands behind everything we publish and expects commenters to do the same. * No personal attacks, profanity, discriminatory language or threats. Keep it clean, civil and on topic. *WyoFile does not fact check every comment but, when noticed, submissions containing clear misinformation, demonstrably false statements of fact or links to sites trafficking in such will not be posted. *Individual commenters are limited to three comments per story, including replies.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *