A rare sight- Yosemite National Park "fire" waterfall

www.freerepublic.com...

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

Looks like a lava-waterfall. Very cool.


I like coming on ATS and seeing stuff I didn't know could happen, so I thought I'd share what I stumbled on. I hope you find this as amazing as I do.

is this for real? if it is real i would like to see this in person.

on further inspection, I don't think its real. Oh well.
damn.

That's cool.
thanks for the pics.

reply to post by MeesterB




Very interesting find. I'm not too sure what to think of it. There is mention of "perfect conditions". I would be interested to know what on earth those are and if they can be duplicated.

All the photos in the link seem to have a different time of day too. Meaning that the sun/photographer position is definitely a significant factor.

S&F for the find

www.nps.gov...

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.

So it does exist according to National Park Service, but not to be confused with Yosemite Firefall.

The Yosemite Firefall was a summer time ritual that lasted from 1872 until 1968 in which burning hot embers were dropped a height of about 3000 feet from the top of Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park down to the valley below, and from a distance looked similar to a glowing water fall because the people who dumped the embers made sure to do so in a uniform fashion. The ritual was performed by several generations of the owners of the Glacier Point Hotel. The ritual ended in January 1968 when the National Park Service ordered that the Firefall be discontinued due to the overwhelming number of visitors it attracted, and the fact that it was not a natural event. The hotel burned down a year later and was never rebuilt.

en.wikipedia.org...

Yes if I may postulate the obvious, looks like the light is traveling in the water like fiber optics...the sun is above the cliff face pours light into the water before it falls...if the fall can sustain the stream it could carry the light a great distance....very very cool spot....If it was warmer I would say meditate under there and try to inhale the golden negative ion droplets!!! but brrrr.....Feb is not shorts and T shirt time lol

That's absolutely beautiful. It reminds me of Ray bradbury's version of Mars in The Martian Chronicles. S&F OP

When I was a kid, my grandparents took us kids, every year to see the Yosemite Firefall. It was amazing to see in person. I was told that it was made of hot coals, like BBQ coals. It didn't last long, but it was a breathtaking site.

Here's a photo from the '60's of the "fire fall."
History of Yosemite Firefall

Here's some photos of the sunlight phenonena.

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Thanks for the post. It brought back some great memories for me of our family's annual tradition.