Dan's Outside

Firefall Photos

Yosemite Blog:

This year has been a great year for waterfalls and I’ve been getting some great photos of Horsetail Fall and the firefall. Here are a couple of my favorites… [Yosemite Blog]

Click the title link to visit the original post at Yosemite Blog where photos are posted.

This firefall is “organic” – it appears early in the year when a seasonal waterfall on El Capitan catches the sunset light for a few weeks when conditions are right. I have a pretty good idea where this fall appears, though I’ve never been there to photograph it.

While the major waterfalls of Yosemite Valley are better known, during the early runoff period (before the all of the snow on the relatively low areas just above the Valley melts) there are small but quite beautiful seasonal waterfalls all around the valley. They may lack the overwhelming power of Yosemite, Bridalveil, Vernal, or Nevada falls during peak runoff, but they have a very special charm of their own.

Readers whose history in with the Valley is relatively short may not completely understand the reference to “firefall” in the title. When I first visited the Valley as a kid there was a nightly “firefall” that stopped everything on the Valley floor. A large fire was made on Glacier Point and after dark, accompanined by a cry of “Let the fire fall!”, the embers were pushed over the cliff creating, yes, a fire fall.
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March 15, 2007 - Posted by gdanmitchell | Places