I have bad news for you my friend. You've got the Milky Way in your shot, which means you were facing south. They were behind you!
Yes, the first picture was north the second was south.
We were there last night, it was insane! I've never seen so many cars in the park at night!
It was nuts. We entered through the south entrance around 12:30am. We got lucky and found a semi secluded spot after skull rock.
I have bad news for you my friend. You've got the Milky Way in your shot, which means you were facing south. They were behind you!