A rare sight - Yosemite National Park "fire" waterfall

personal forwarded email | July 12, 2010 | unknown

[B-Cause]

A rare sight - Yosemite National Park

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This park was gazetted as a national park in 1890. It is world famous for its rugged terrain, waterfalls, and century-old pine trees. It covers 1200 sq km and the "fire" waterfall of El Capitan is one of the most spectacular of all scenery. The spectacular view of the waterfall is created by the reflection of sunlight hitting the falling water at a specific angle. This rare sight can only be seen during a 2-week period towards the end of February. To photograph this rare event, photographers would often have to wait and endure years of patience in order to capture them. The reason is because its appearance depends on a few natural phenomenons occuring at the same time and lots of luck. 1st, is the formation of the waterfall - the water is formed by the melting of snow and ice at the top of the mountain. It melts between the months of December and January and by the end of February there might not have enough snow left to melt. 2nd, is the specific angle of the sunray hitting the falling water - the sun's position must be exactly at a particular spot in the sky. This occurs only in the month of February and at dusk. If it is a day full of clouds or something blocking the sun, you can only take pictures of your own sorry face on the waterfall. It coincides with the fact that the weather in the National Park at that time of the year is often volatile and unpredictable. It compounds the difficulty of getting these pictures. Someone did - and we all get to see it - enjoy Soli Deo gloria - to God alone be glory

[Huskrrrr]

Breath taking!

[Vendome]

That was really cool.

[Pelham]

I got to see the Yosemite firefall before the do-gooders got it banned. It really was spectacular.

[historyrepeatz]

Nice Photoshop work. /sarcasm

[Mike Darancette]

B.S. They used to have the “Fire Fall” almost every night during the Summer. They stopped it in 1968 after over 95 years.

[Williams]

They stopped what?

[Drago]

Yosemite “Firefall”...a nightly event at Camp Curry up until 1968 (as mentioned earlier):

http://firefall.info/

[Southack]

Firefall was not water+Sun.

The hotel up there would dump burning embers down at that spot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yosemite_Firefall

[Quix]

THX THX

[dalereed]

saw the real one also in 1948.

[Fiji Hill]

I got to see the Yosemite firefall before the do-gooders got it banned. It really was spectacular.

I saw it in 1957 and 1960.

[notpoliticallycorewrecked]

Either these are old pictures or the park had a special event as a remembrance to the days of the Firefall. For those of you that never saw this event. It was held I believe on a weekly basis during the 60's and prior. I think that they stopped it in the early 70's, but am not sure of the exact year. I am also not sure when it started.

The rangers would create a huge fire up at Glacier Point and then would shove the burning embers over the face of Glacier Point to create the sensation. They would wait until it was fully dark. A large crowd will gather at Curry Village (I believe) to see the event. Since it was totally dark, it was hard to tell what method they used to send the burning embers crashing to the Valley below.

[Conservative4Life]

Bump

[Drago]

More: http://www.firefall.com/journal.asp

[21twelve]

Looks to be a mix of photos of the burning ember “Fire Falls” and some nice photos of sunlight on water falls.

The wiki description of the Fire Falls was very interesting with the history, etc.

A hotel did the fire falls when they were forced to stop it by the park. Later that same winter heavy snows damaged the hotel. That summer, during repairs, the hotel burned to the ground. In part fed by a pile of wood used for the fire falls!

[steel_resolve]

Wow ping

[Drago]

The “light conditions” must have been perfect during the filming of “Caine Mutiny”!! ;-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgf_39CfS1Y

[rcrngroup]

Spectacular!

[SaraJohnson]

Those pictures are beautiful. Thanks so much for posting them! :)