Not One for Crowds

I'm not really the kind of person to follow crowds or try to get photographs of things that thousands of photographers have already captured... yet the Firefalls was on my bucket list anyways. It was an emotional rollercoaster, but I finally got a glimpse, just for a few beautiful minutes.

What is the Firefall?

If y'all don't know about the Firefall, it's a natural phenomenon on Horsetail Fall that only occurs from mid to late February, and the conditions have to be damn near perfect.

For Starters:

There has to be enough snow fall throughout the winter that needs to melt at this time of year. Otherwise, you just have this glowin' mountain side, which is pretty cool... but it's much more stunning with a bit of water flow. With that, the temperature during the day should be warm enough to allow that snow to melt.

NO CLOUDS!! Kind of the opposite of what most landscape photographers want at sunset but, clouds covering the settin' sun = no Firefall = sad day. Of course, clouds above the Firefall would really add to the beauty and emotion of the scene... but I wasn't trying to push my luck.

The wind needs to die down, so it doesn't blow away the little waterfall that is there. Even when Horsetail Fall is flowin' at its best, it can be hard to find because it can appear to be more of a trickle or a mist. Combine wind with a misty fall, we are back to a possible glowin' mountain side.

So, now knowing all of that, allow me to bring you along our adventure.

Monday Mornin', February 13th

My husband and I arrived pretty early to the park on Monday, as someone who has anxiety and has never been to Yosemite before, I wanted to scope out what I was working with. I had been watching the weather like a hawk for almost two weeks leading up to this, wonderin' if it would end up being worth the time off of work and the drive... well, boy was it!

It was pretty chilly outside with still a good amount of snow on the ground, so I was wearin' about 3-4 layers because this gal gets cold easily. I noticed a waterfall coming up on the right side of the road, thankfully there was a small turn off area I was able to pull into and get some of our first views of the park. We got out and took a few steps around the corner of a line of trees to get a better view of the falls, only to turn back around and see a raven had landed on top of our car. I filled with excitement (animal lover here), but also urgency as I had made the mistake of not putting my camera around my neck 'cause it was only going to be a "quick look". Never fails, you'd think I'd learn by now that the cool things always happen when the camera isn't in hand.

I noticed, however, there were a couple of people walking fairly close to grab quick snapshots of 'em. Seein' this, I thought maybe it would let me get my camera out of the backseat, and if I was even luckier, change to a smaller lens, as I had my 200-600mm locked in and ready to go. Carefully shuffling my way back through the snow to test such luck, a second raven flew over and onto the car. These beauties had no fear, in fact they were intrigued to see if what I was pulling out, would be food for them.

I want to make a note here that wildlife should be kept wild, especially in National Parks. When wildlife starts to connect people to food, they can put themselves in harmful situations. It is best to admire their beauty from a distance to keep them, and yourself, safe. Also, please be sure to pick up after yourself so that these creatures don't consume trash. I later witnessed a raven chowing down on a sponge in a campground, thankfully I was able to run over and grab the rest of it before he finished it. Leave No Trace!

These two were the perfect models for me. Givin' me a little show of their affection towards each other, and seemingly posing for the camera. They knew, and showed off, their "good" sides.

A fantastic start to the day!

Meanderin'

Middle of the day consisted of stoppin' at a few more viewpoints and a bit of mental plannin' for the evening. Where is the best parking? When should we walk over there? Is it a trail we need to follow? Will there be a ton of people out there? How early is too early? Since social media has made this natural event quite popular, the park rangers were posted almost everywhere, ready to answer any questions.

We found a parking spot in one of the campgrounds, where we would start our walk to Horsetail Fall. This is where I noticed the raven munchin' on a sponge, that I mentioned earlier. A little way past the raven, I caught a glimpse of a Steller Jay; a gorgeous blue bird I've wanted to photograph for some time. Naturally, I abandoned my husband at the car to make my way across the slick and snowy campground to see what I could capture of this busy bird. While this jay didn't get as close as the earlier ravens, he allowed me to observe him for a while, and I did manage to get a couple of shots that I was eager to see later. In the middle of this, a squirrel even came by and struck a pose for me!

Of course, this was making my excitement for the day grow stronger.

Startin' the Afternoon Adventure

Brodey found me and came over to remind me that we had about a mile and a half walk ahead of us. It turned out, it wasn't a trail to get to the viewing spots. The rangers blocked off half of the road to make for an easy stroll from the campground parking, all the way to the El Capitan picnic area.

Now, I have seen plenty of Firefall pictures before this, so I thought I knew what I was lookin' for... however, it's a bit different in person. Especially since at our first stop in the day (where the ravens were), I noticed another waterfall across the street: what I thought was Horsetail Fall. It seemed like it had great water flow, thus I figured our chances for a vibrant, pouring waterfall, were high. Silly me.

After we walked for, apparently 2ish miles, I noticed a few people were passin' us going the way we had just come from. I finally stopped someone to ask if we had gone too far, because I didn't see the strong flowing falls yet. To my surprise, they pointed to a trickling "waterfall", which was actually Horsetail Fall. So, we back tracked for maybe half a mile, I was rubbernecking the whole time looking for the "perfect" frame. There were already other photographers set up in various places... me being me, I approached one to start askin' questions and to check out the different spots. Shoutout to Jeremy for being so friendly and showing me his photos from the night before!

Roughly 10 minutes later of me walkin' back and forth, circlin' around, and investigatin' both sides of the road, I finally found our spot for the evening. Let the anxious 2 1/2 hour wait, begin.

My trooper of a husband took a much-needed nap in the meantime, poor guy was battling a sinus infection throughout the entire trip. Nevertheless, with the help of some Dayquil, he pushed through and supported me without skippin' a beat. Meanwhile, I did a little more research with the single bar of service I had and made sure everything was set up to my liking.

Conditions were lookin' promising! It was sunny, the wind was dyin' down a bit more allowing the water to actually fall, and did I mention it was sunny? Not a cloud in the sky...

The sun continued to creep down the horizon and the light began closing in. Everything was linin' up beautifully, I couldn't believe we were actually here getting to experience this firsthand.

As the light narrowed in, the falls illuminated a gorgeous gold. The fiery falls were just moments away from givin' the last light of the day.

I was GIDDY. Probably resembled that of a kid in a chocolate factory, or a dog wigglin' around 'bout to be given a bone... and I wasn't the only one. You could feel the energy and anticipation from the crowd that had gathered. The "ooo's" "wow's" and "isn't that gorgeous" was murmuring throughout... but that began to dissipate. Suddenly, there wasn't any sunlight to make the falls glow.

We waited and wondered if that was the end of the show. Many started packin' up to prepare for their walk back, we however, didn't just sit here for almost three hours to give up so damn quickly. While starin' down this mountainside, as if my glare was gonna make it magically fire back up, I noticed there were quite a few planes passin' behind the falls.

Ya gotta read this next sentence in your best southern accent.

Boy, I tell you hhwhat, I couldn't've planned this shot even if I tried.

Turned out, there just so happened to be one massive cloud that had all of the audacity to cover the sun in the most crucial moment. Hope wasn't lost though! Three whole minutes later, the finale decided to make its appearance.

Y'all'd've thought we were at the Superbowl the way the crowd began to cheer.

Notice that lovely cloud in the lower left corner there? It had zero shame playin' with our hearts like it did, but all was forgiven since it showed mercy and moved the hell outta the way just in time.

The first golden glow to the last pink gleaming falls, was a span of 18 minutes. The pink firefall itself, was 4 minutes long.

Four stunning minutes.

I do wonder how long it would've lasted had the cloud not rudely interrupted, even so, I am extremely grateful for those four minutes.

Just a fun reminder that Mother Nature is in charge and can change conditions in, quite literally, an instant. That was even more evident when we chanced it the following day. The weather showed snow off and on, all day long, but I would've kicked myself for not tryin' again anyways.

Another adventure to be had with moody photos to be shown, in part two!

Coming soon

If there are any photos in this post that you would love to have hangin' on a wall, I would be honored. Just shoot me a message! Thank you again so much for reading! :)