by Layal Hilal
Have you ever seen a waterfall on fire? If you have, you’ve probably been to Yosemite and seen Horsetail Falls in February, where the waterfall “lights on fire” a few times every year. The illusion of it becoming a literal “river of lava” is caused by the sun setting at the right time in the right place, and it has attracted hundreds of visitors across the country, including me and my family!
Facts about Yosemite’s Horsetail Waterfall Firefall:
- Horsetail Falls, a waterfall on the eastern side of El Capitan, literally attracts thousands of visitors from all over the country coming to see the fake “volcano eruption”. Of course, the waterfall doesn’t actually light on fire; it’s just the sun’s rays hitting the falls from the perfect angle at the perfect time that causes the illusion.
- From mid to late February, this amazing phenomenon occurs in Yosemite National Park about ten minutes before sunset every day.
- It is known as the ‘firefall” and visitors travel thousands of miles to capture it on camera.
- The first person to ever take a picture of this was a man named Galen Rowell, who happened to be driving through Yosemite Valley in 1973, glanced up, and saw a lava waterfall.
- Galen Rowell was born in 1940 and died in 2002.
- He was a well-renowned American photographer, climber, and mountaineer and took the first shot of the firefall occuring, becoming the man who made it famous.
- For the firefall to happen, the water has to be rushing down the cliff, there has to be a clear or mostly clear sky with few clouds, the sun has to set at just the right angle, and, of course, it only takes place in about the last two weeks of February.
- If you decide to visit this waterfall in the last few days when you can (or you can just do it next year!), try to go on a weekday, since you need reservations on the weekend, get there really early, bring a lot of snacks, have a plan for what to do before sunset, bring a really good camera or your phone if you don’t have one, do your research to try and get the best viewing spot, and set up your blankets, chairs, and camera where you’re viewing the falls about two to three hours before it starts, because yes, people come that early
- DISCLAIMER: No matter how many videos and photos you see, nothing will prepare you for a tiny, almost invisible waterfall to turn bright orange in the time before sunset. Your breath will still be taken away, you will still scream, ooh, and ahh, you will still take millions of photos in the hope at least one will do it justice, you will find yourself scared to blink, for fear that it will end in the moment you close your eyes, and you will be filled with a consuming disappointment as it returns to its normal color.
Go to Horsetail Falls. Watch it turn orange. Take a million videos. Revisit the memory in your dreams. Wish it lasted longer. If you can’t go this year, go next year. Even if you watch it from your car, parked illegally on the side of the road because you came too late, starving because you forgot all your food, with trees and clouds partially blocking your view and your camera forgotten at home, you won’t regret it. And if you do…keep going until you don’t.
The Lighthouse 