Evan J. Alderson, explorer, photographer and historian, is the founder of Waypoints West, a member supported archive of hidden and forgotten places in the American West. Armed with a camera and a jeep, Alderson has dedicated much of his life to hunting down lost history. He has found and photographed ghost towns, gold mines, shipwrecks, plane crashes, abandoned military installations, and more. His exploits have seen him trapped in the mountains, caught in a forest fire, and captured at gunpoint by the U.S. Air Force. His extensive travels have included academic pursuits in the United Kingdom, Italy, and Costa Rica.