A Guide to the Natural Yosemite Firefall 2022
Hundreds of photographers gather in Yosemite Valley each year for the natural firefall at Horsetail Fall. Everyone there has their fingers crossed for the perfect conditions. When it happens, the sunlight streams through the thin sliver of a waterfall, turning it molten orange. Shutters fire as people gasp, and cheer and hug their friends and neighbors.
Have you seen the pictures? When the conditions are just right, there is no need to turn up the saturation in the editing process. It really is just that dramatic and unbelievable.
Here is what you need to know about this otherwise humble waterfall in 2022, and how to catch it in full social media sensation mode.
Why is it called the Yosemite Firefall?
The Glacier Point firefall was created from an actual fire
falling from the edge of Glacier Point as a tourist attraction. Photo courtesy: National Park Service.
The reason this is called “the firefall” and not the molten waterfall or something else stems from an interesting history of amazing visual displays in Yosemite Valley.
Back in 1872, the owners of the Glacier Point Hotel created a spectacle by pushing an actual bonfire off the edge of the cliff at Glacier Point. The cascade of red-hot embers falling down the cliff looked like a glowing waterfall of light to onlookers below. Although the practice started and stopped several times over the years, by the mid1900s thousands of people were coming to Yosemite to literally watch the fire fall.
Eventually, in January of 1968 the director of the National Park Service, George Hartzog, stopped this practice. This man-made event was obviously inconsistent with the park mission to protect the park’s natural wonders. The huge number of spectators were trampling the meadows, and the concessionaires were having to go further and further afield to find enough of their preferred red fir bark to build the fires. Not to mention the fire hazard it created.
Just 5 years after the Yosemite Firefall ended in 1973, a talented adventure photographer named Galen Rowell accidentally stumbled across a new firefall-like phenomenon. As he was driving out of the valley on Southside Drive, he spotted a small waterfall off the shoulder of El Capitan that looked molten in the setting sun. He leaped out of his car and ran to the photograph – the first widely-circulated color picture of the natural firefall in Yosemite National Park.
With the image of the falling bonfire at Glacier Point a recent memory, of course the new natural phenomenon has been dubbed the natural Yosemite firefall.
What are the best conditions to see the natural Yosemite firefall?
Most of the year, Horsetail Fall is one of Yosemite’s lessremarkable waterfalls. Although it drops an impressive 2,130 feet (650 m), the small stream at the top of El Capitan doesn’t have the massive volume of some of the more well-known waterfalls like Yosemite Falls or Bridalveil Fall. Fed exclusively through snowmelt and run-off, it dries up in the summer months and disappears entirely.
However, for a few weeks starting in February, everything comes together to make this humble waterfall an international celebrity. There are several factors that go into creating this magnificent spectacle.
The perfect alignment of the sun, the waterfall and the viewer.
The sun comes into position in mid-to-late February each year, so if you’re in the right place, that’s when the magic will happen. More on the best time and place to view the natural Yosemite firefall effect in a bit.
Is there enough water in Horsetail Fall?
The second requirement for the firefall effect is having enough water in Horsetail Fall.
One way to get a sense of the water flow in Horsetail Fall before you make the trip is to check out the Yosemite Falls webcam. It will give you some idea of how much water is flowing. Also, plan to keep an eye on the Yosemite weather forecast in late January and early February.
In order to get a nice flow in
Horsetail Fall a few different things need to happen. One, there has to be some snow on the ground to provide the water for the waterfall. Second, it needs to be warm enough during the day that the sun melts that snow and sends it running over the edge of the fall. If it is exceptionally cold, the cliff surrounding the waterfall will still light up, and the trickle of water coming over the edge will reflect the setting sun, but you won’t see the stream of molten fire unless there is more water.
Clear skies for the Yosemite National Park Firefall
With the sun in the right
place, and enough water in Horsetail Fall to catch the sun, the firefall can still fail to materialize if cloud cover blocks the sun during the critical minutes of the evening. For that reason, a cloudy forecast will keep many people away. However, if that cloudy forecast clears just enough to let the right beam of sunlight through, you can end up with a one-ofa-kind image with the firefall surrounded by brilliant pink clouds.
To learn more about when to see the firefall, visit https:// www.yosemite.com/a-guideto-yosemites-natural-firefallhorsetail-fall/.