How I Used My Drone on a Multi Day Alpine Project and When I Chose Not To
How I Used My Drone on a Multi Day Alpine Project and When I Chose Not To
The Drone Is Not the Hard Part
People assume the hard part of aerial work is flying. It is not. The hard part is deciding whether to fly at all. On my seven day solo project from Lake Tahoe to Mount Lassen to Mount Shasta, I brought a drone with me, and I flew it far less than most people would expect. Every launch costs battery, time, attention, and a little bit of risk, and on a solo trip those four things are the only currency you have. Spending them badly early in the week means you are short later, when it matters more.
I want to walk through how I actually made those calls, because I think the decision process is more useful than any settings list. This was a brand storytelling project shot for multiple outdoor companies including Big Agnes, Crazy Creek, and Out There. The goal was never to collect impressive aerial footage for its own sake. The goal was to tell the story of one person moving through two mountains over seven days. Sometimes the drone served that story. A lot of the time it did not.
Day Two and the Fog That Grounded Me
The first real drone decision came on day two, on a foggy morning driving toward Lassen. I made an attempt at flying that morning, and the conditions made it clear pretty quickly that the aerial angle was not going to give me what I wanted. Fog flattens everything. It takes away the depth and the scale that make an aerial shot worth the trouble in the first place. When you cannot see the terrain, an aerial view stops being a view at all.
So I put it away and went looking for a different answer. That is how I ended up stopping at Mill Creek, on the ground, working with what the fog actually gave me instead of fighting it from the air. Some of the quieter and more honest images from the early part of the trip came out of that stop. If I had spent that morning stubbornly trying to make an aerial shot work in bad conditions, I would have burned an hour and come away with nothing usable. Instead I burned twenty minutes learning something and moved on.
That morning set the pattern for the rest of the week. The drone became a tool I reached for when the conditions clearly rewarded it and put away without ceremony when they did not. There is a version of this job where you feel obligated to use every piece of gear you carried, as if leaving it in the case is a waste. That instinct has cost me more good mornings than bad weather ever has.
What the Drone Actually Does for a Solo Creator
When you are working alone, the drone is not just an aerial camera. It is the only crew member you have. It is the one tool that can show you in the frame at a scale a tripod cannot reach, and on a project built around one person moving through big terrain, that matters enormously. A wide shot of a small figure on a huge snowfield says something about the trip that a self portrait from a tripod ten feet away never will.
That is the honest case for carrying one on a solo project. Without it, every image of you in the landscape is limited by how far you can walk from the camera and still get back before the light changes. The drone removes that limit. It lets you build the scale into the story, which is exactly what brand clients need when the whole point is showing a product and a person in a real place doing real work.
But it comes with a cost that shows up in the pack. Batteries are heavy, and cold weather drains them faster than you expect. On a multi day trip where you are also carrying camera gear, a tripod, brand products, food, and mountaineering equipment, every battery you bring is a decision to leave something else behind. That math gets harsh quickly once you start carrying loads up a mountain rather than driving between locations.
When I Chose Not to Fly
The clearest example of choosing not to fly came on the Shasta leg of the trip. I started at the Bunny Flat trailhead around noon and made my way up to Horse Camp, which sits around seven thousand nine hundred feet. That carry did not go smoothly. I ended up hiking a long stretch on the hiking trail while holding my skis instead of taking the ski route, and then realized once I got to camp that I needed a second load for my tripod, camera kit, and the brand products from Crazy Creek and Out There. I skied back down to the van and hiked back up again, this time using the ski route, which was much faster.
Somewhere in the middle of doing a day twice over, the idea of stopping to fly loses its appeal fast. Energy is a real constraint, not an abstract one. Every flight requires setup, focus, and a clear head, and if you are running on empty from a carry you underestimated, that is exactly when you make a mistake with an expensive piece of equipment in terrain that does not forgive mistakes.
Summit day was even more clear cut. I woke at three in the morning, climbed Avalanche Bulge in the dark, dealt with forgetting my helmet, helped coordinate a helicopter rescue as a Wilderness First Responder, pushed through The Thumb and Heartbreak Hill, and reached the summit just over fourteen thousand feet. I had already left half my camera gear at camp for that push. Adding a drone to a day like that would have been the wrong call for reasons that have nothing to do with photography and everything to do with weight, focus, and safety.
The Questions I Ask Before Every Launch
Over this trip I settled into a short mental checklist that I still use. First, does the aerial view show something the ground view cannot. If the answer is no, the drone stays in the case. Second, do the conditions support it. Wind and poor visibility do not just make flying harder, they make the resulting footage worse, which means you are taking on risk for a shot you probably will not use. Third, do I have the energy and attention to do this well right now. That third question is the one solo creators skip, and it is the one most likely to cost you a drone.
There is a fourth question too, and it is about the story rather than the shot. Does this moment belong in the air. A lot of what made this project honest was on the ground and close in. The unglamorous parts, the second carry, the cold hands, the food break three quarters of the way up Lassen. Aerial footage is spectacular but it is also distant, and distance is not always what a brand story needs. Some moments deserve to feel close.
What I Would Tell Another Photographer
If you are planning a multi day project and wondering whether to bring a drone, bring it, but decide in advance which specific shots you want from it. A drone with a job is worth carrying. A drone you brought because you own one becomes dead weight that guilts you into flying at the wrong moments. Naming the two or three aerial shots that actually serve your story before you leave home will do more for your work than any amount of practice flying.
And be honest with yourself about the days when it should stay packed. On a seven day project I flew it far less than I expected to, and the work is better for it. The story of this trip lived in the boot pack where the snow was sinking waist deep, in the moonlit tent shot at three in the morning, and in a second load up a mountain that I should have planned better. None of that happened in the air, and no amount of aerial footage would have told it more truthfully.
Dalton Johnson is a commercial photographer and director of photography based in South Lake Tahoe, California. Over the last decade he has worked with brands including Patagonia, GoPro, Arc'teryx, Four Seasons, Nike, Rivian, and Big Agnes across all seven continents. He documents adventure, travel, and the outdoors through photography, film, and writing. Follow along at dalton-johnson.com.