Yosemite’s Horsetail Falls at its fiery best


Photo Tweeted from the National Park Service:

Bethany Gediman photo of Horsetail Falls, Yosemite NP, glowing orange

Horsetail Fall flows over the eastern edge of El Capitan in Yosemite Valley. It’s a small waterfall that many people don’t notice, but it has gained popularity as more and more people have noticed it can glow orange during sunset in mid to late February. The most popular place to see Horsetail Fall seemingly afire is El Capitan picnic area, west of Yosemite Lodge and east of El Capitan (see map below). The “firefall” effect generally happens during the second half of February. A clear sky is necessary for the waterfall to glow orange. Photo: Bethany Gediman, NPS

People living close to National Parks are lucky to do so; people who work in them luckier still, in the lifetime sweepstakes for seeing breathtaking sites.  NPS employee (Ranger?) Bethany Gediman caught this image of Horsetail Fall in Yosemite National Park.

Be sure to see the video of Yosemite Nature Notes No. 14, posted here earlier. It shows Horsetail at sunset in full glory.  Great photography.

How to get there:

Map to Horsetail Falls, Yosemite NP

Map of Yosemite National Park, showing Horsetail Falls and hiking trail to get to viewpoint in the photograph.

More:

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 26th, 2013 at 5:02 pm and is filed under History, National Parks, Natural history, Nature, photography, Travel, Yosemite. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

5 Responses to Yosemite’s Horsetail Falls at its fiery best

  1. Ellie's avatar Ellie says:
    February 26, 2019 at 9:56 am

    Thanks, Ed. And thanks for that article back in 2013 that made me aware of this lovely phenomenon.

    Like

  2. Ed Darrell's avatar Ed Darrell says:
    February 25, 2019 at 6:58 pm

    Link worked, it just trailed out of the margins a bit. Is that better?

    Like

  3. Ellie's avatar Ellie says:
    February 25, 2019 at 5:42 pm

    Oops…I really messed up that link. Sorry. Maybe you can clean it up?

    Like

  4. Ellie's avatar Ellie says:
    February 25, 2019 at 5:41 pm

    Just read this on Snopes, and thought of you. I wish I could have seen this sometime. I’m glad others have, and have taken pictures.

    Liked by 1 person

  5. Spirited Quill - Cairenn Rhys's avatar Cairenn Rhys says:
    February 26, 2013 at 10:17 pm

    I can’t remember if it was Ansel Adams or John Muir that referred to Yosemite as a cathedral. It truly is that – my heart is there. I love CA and Yosemite is ‘home’ for me. Thank you for sharing this…I have tears in my eyes, I miss it so.

    Liked by 1 person

Please play nice in the Bathtub -- splash no soap in anyone's eyes. While your e-mail will not show with comments, note that it is our policy not to allow false e-mail addresses. Comments with non-working e-mail addresses may be deleted.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.