Photographed from the Lander Cutoff Road, Pilot Butte near South Pass, Wyoming served as a navigational aid to wagon train masters on the Oregon Trail. Looking across the otherwise featureless Red desert, it's easy to imagine the landmark as a welcome sight for emigrants in the early part of the nineteenth century.

The photograph is part of a collection of images I captured during my westward odyssey that are posted here on the AFAR collaborative.