Where to Shoot Yosemite's Horsetail Fall

A happy Valentine's Day: February 14, 2017, Yosemite National Park

Two flows in 2016!

Horsetail Fall in Yosemite Valley is backlit by the setting sun for roughly two weeks each year. As the sun falls behind the vertical face of El Capitan, it selectively lights this waterfall with its orange sunset glow.

This is an amazing spectacle to witness. Lasting only about 15 minutes before the sun goes down, the lighting gradually grows in intensity and color for the last 5 minutes or so. It is often like seeing a narrow strip of lava flowing down the face of El Capitan.

The weather and the water flows often don't cooperate.  You need enough snow above El Capitan, high enough temperatures up there for some of that snow to melt, and you need clear skies where the sun sets on the western horizon.  I was shut out by back to back blizzards in 2007, so I was fortunate to see this on two consecutive evenings from two different angles in 2008, and several times since then.

Nearly no water in 2012, it still looked great!

Sometimes there is little water flowing down the rock, but from a position to the south, the selective light on the wet spot makes it look like the waterfall is there anyway!

Other times, if there's clearly too much cloud cover or valley mist to allow light through, heading somewhere else for a more traditional landscape shot may be the ticket for that evening.  You have to first anticipate where the best light will be, before you can be in the right place to react to the light as it develops.

In 2017 I experienced a new variation: there was little direct light on the waterfall at sunrise, but there was intense sunset color on the horizon a few minutes later, and while the main flow of water didn't pick that up with any particular intensity, the surrounding wet spots on the rock reflected it beautifully.

Unfortunately most photographers seemed to have been waiting only for the direct light of the sun, so there was a pulse of traffic as they drove away, probably not seeing the sunset light that developed after the official sunset time.  Folks, that's how sunsets usually work!  The best color is minutes AFTER the theoretical (zero degree horizon) sunset time. So stick around for at least 10 minutes "after sunset", or even 15 or 20, just to be sure that you don't miss that night's color, whatever it may be.

February 28, 2008

1) Along the bank of the Merced River near the turnout just East of the Cathedral Beach picnic area (which is closed for Winter). This location is described on page 24 of my 320-page guidebook "Photographing California Vol. 2 - South".

This angle provides the composition that compresses the complete length of Horsetail Fall against the rock of El Capitan.  You can zoom in for a composition with no sky, or use a wider focal length to include the profile of El Capitan.  This seems to be the most crowded location in recent years, as photographers pack together to shoot through an opening in the trees.

This is arguably a more complete view of Horsetail Fall, showing a longer stretch of its descent, making it look longer and skinnier.  The view of more of the vertical drop makes the water flow look skinnier, and seeing it all from a longer distance makes it look more abstract and lava-like.

2) In the vicinity of the Cathedral picnic area on Northside Road in the valley, 1/2 mile East of the El Capitan bridge. That North road is closed for maintenance, so it's a 1 mile walk each way from where the El Captan bridge road hits Southside Road. This location is also described in "Photographing California Vol. 2 - South".

This is more of a side view than the position on the south side of the Merced River, with the upper reaches of the waterfall against the sky.  By showing less of the vertical drop, the flow of the water looks wider, and you see more of the rock face relief in detail.

The more northern location is probably the more common and iconic shot you see, although I don't mean to imply that's better.  It's just another nice variation on a rare and amazing solar alignment event.

No Horsetail, 2007.  So what?

The conditions required to make Horsetail Fall are unpredictable, so it's important not to rule out all trips that look iffy.  You're probably more likely to miss it than catch it, but it's important to remember that Yosemite is beautiful this time of year, and generally more so if there are passing storms!  So missing Horsetail Fall may be the best possible outcome for your trip.  You may catch far better photos, of far more unique conditions.

Plan on some dates, prepare yourself for the trip (carry chains), enjoy a winter trip to Yosemite, and consider Horsetail Fall to be possible icing on the cake!  And expect to enjoy return trips to Yosemite in the winter if you don't get the Horsetail Fall photo that you want on the first one.  Seriously, even when I lived in Sacramento, only 3 hours away, it was nearly impossible to predict when conditions would be great.

Life isn't a destination, it's the journey that occurs as you pursue your goals.  Enjoy and make the most out of every moment.

If you want a little help maximizing your odds of success and anticipating the light to be in the right place while you are in the park, I update my annual list of Yosemite photography workshops here.

Upper Yosemite Falls reflection on a moonlit night, February 15, 2017

Night Rainbows by the Light of the Moon

Upper Yosemite Falls Moonbow

You may not have ever thought about it, but the sunlight reflecting off of the full moon is actually bright enough to create rainbows at night! This phenomenon is easiest to see in the mist of waterfalls, when the angle between the moon's light and your position is just right.

Fortunately if you'd like to know when they're most likely to be visible in Yosemite Valley, Don Olson of the Department of Physics at Texas State University has made it easy for you, publishing predictions for Upper Yosemite Fall and Lower Yosemite Fall.







Lower Yosemite Fall from Cook's Meadow.










Moonbow reflected in a vernal pool in Cook's Meadow.















From the short hiking path to the base of Lower Yosemite Fall.

Dogwood Season in Yosemite Valley

Yosemite Dogwood, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan (Truckee today).

The dogwood are in full boom in Yosemite Valley, with no new buds apparent. The trees have most of their leaves showing, which can obscure the flowers somewhat (for photography it's best to catch them a little on the early side).

Up at higher elevations the dogwoods are just starting to bloom, with a few early ones showing up in the 5000 to 6000 foot elevations as you leave the Valley South through the Wawona Tunnel and on both sides of Crane Flat. I'd give those areas another week or so.

The redbud trees are also blooming. For this shot I chose somewhat of a reverse composition, where the framing element is the subject, and what normally would be a strong subject (Lower Yosemite Falls) is a background element to show context.





Yosemite National Park's Glacier Point road is open, so I headed up to Sentinel Dome for sunset. Tioga Pass is targeted to open Friday, May 22.







Not the best of my photos, but I thought it was a cool thing to see, so I'm sharing it anyway.
I counted at least 9 climbing parties camping out, although their lights were not all visible at once.
I understand that it generally takes at least 2 to 4 days to climb El Capitan. The camps do seem pretty well divided into three levels that a four day, three night climb might require.

Join Me in Yosemite Feb 28

Given current economic concerns, I'm going to try a novel concept for an upcoming workshop on Feb 28... attendee-specified pricing. We'll shoot Winter scenes around Yosemite Saturday 1-6pm, and hopefull catch Horsetail Falls backlit by the setting sun. Afterwards, you decide if it was valuable to you and consider a voluntary contribution proportional to what you felt you received.

For full details, to RSVP and to arrange carpools, see the event listing on Meetup.com.

Representative shots of Yosemite Valley and Horsetail Falls that we might find are included in my Yosemite gallery here.

I hope this concept works out. I'd love to offer a series of seminars like this as I travel around the Western United States this Spring, Summer and Fall!

Circling the Sierra Nevada: Yosemite Valley

Afternoon Light on Half Dome, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan (just back from Yosemite).

Placeholder...

Valley View

Chasing Ansel Adams

Many of us enjoy standing where famous photographers stood in the past, seeing what they saw, and sometimes we even aspire to capture something evocative of their work, an artistic echo in time.

Fortunately with enough information we can determine the shooting position and even duplicate celestial events such as sun and moon position to recreate the lighting of the shot, so if we want to witness for example Ansel Adams' "Moon and Half Dome" image live, we can arrive for the same lunar and sun shadow alignment that Ansel saw in 1960. That won't happen again for almost a decade from now, but there will be a time later this year when the sun and moon position will be awfully close.

More on this later...

Chasing Moonbows in Yosemite Valley at Night

Several times per year the moon is bright enough and at the right angle to create a night rainbow, a "moonbow", in the mist created by Lower Yosemite Falls.  Many people think that this phenomenon can only be seen and photographed from the bridge below the falls.  While that is the most common place for people to gather and photograph the moonbows, you can see moonbows in waterfall mist whenever the angles are right, so it can pay off to explore other shooting positions.  Even with Lower Yosemite Falls I often find moonbows in the waterfall's mist as I hike in towards the bridge.  Give it a try once or twice as you hike in and  and as you hike out.

As a starting point for predicting the best times to catch a moonbow in Yosemite, Don Olson of Texas State University has calculated the best times to look for a moonbow from the bridge below Lower Yosemite Falls:
http://uweb.txstate.edu/~do01/

If you go to the bridge to photograph the moonbows, please don't use headlamps, as they throw light uncontrollably all over the other photographers' shots.  And red lights are the worst, the most inconsiderate for you to use... very difficult to edit out of shots later.  This isn't astronomy, you're not in a darkroom.  Please have the simple courtesy to leave the red lights at home.  For seeing your camera controls without destroying your night vision, hold your (dimmed) phone display on top of your camera, facing back at yourself.  Any light of any kind that you sine back at the front of your camera, to see if there is water on the filter for example, will probably appear in the shot of the people next to you.

You can also catch the North Star directly at the top of Yosemite Falls, with the Big Dipper above.  It you have enough patience you can shoot a star trails sequence here, but you'll probably also catch a lot of flashlights and headlamps as people hike in and out.  Note that moonbows are most typically seen under a nearly-full moon, so if you simply give your eyes a few minutes to adjust, you probably don't need a headlamp or flashlight to walk in and out on this paved path.  You'll probably see much more with night-adjusted vision and no light than you would with poorly adjusted vision and a tiny spot of light.  That can even be true under the light of the stars only if you're in an open enough area for the starlight to shine on the ground around you.


I also found a moonbow in Lower Yosemite Falls (click to enlarge) from the Illouette Falls viewpoint and Four Mile Trail trail head a couple of days earlier at midnight.  No crowds and foreground-destroying red lights here!  There's virtually no limit to where you can shoot Yosemite moonbows from, if you do a little searching.

There were also many reflection opportunities in vernal pools in Cook's Meadow.  This pool does not exist or it is too low after winters with too little snow, such as 2014.

I hope that I've provided some useful information on Yosemite's moonbows so you can pursue some interesting and unique shots.

If you'd like to join me in Yosemite sometime, you can find my Yosemite photography workshop schedule on a dedicated page accessible from the top page of this blog (I'm currently working out the dates for 2014, so you might have to check back or get on my mailing list to hear when they're released): 
http://www.jeffsullivanphotography.com/blog/yosemite-national-park-photography-workshops/

Spring in Yosemite Valley

Yosemite Valley with Snow

Aspen trees in Ahwahnee Meadow
Half Dome over Sentinel Bridge
Upstream from El Capitan Bridge
Cathedral Beach
El Capitan

Yosemite in the Rain

Evaporating rain condenses into clouds as wind currents pass the two thousand foot face of Yosemite's El Capitan. It takes most climbers about 3-4 days to climb Yosemite's El Capitan in good weather. On this rainy weekend, many spent a couple of extra rainy days and cold nights on their small cot-like shelters suspended on the sheer face. In a particularly bad storm, the summit attempt can take climbers the rest of their lives. The descent involves a short hike to a 600 foot rappel.

I enter Yosemite Valley through the smoke of a control burn, and arrive at the Upper Pines campground at 2am, and hit my brakes to avoid hitting a large black bear crossing the road towards another campground. The bears in Yosemite have learned that people mean food, and that people are careless and leave their food out on tables, in campfire pits, and store it in vehicles. Bears roam the campgrounds at night, and rangers patrol the campgrounds all night as well, shining spotlights around the tents and tables to find the bears and to see if anyone has left food out. Signs announce how many cars have been broken into, and that season's running total of damage to them. The score for this season so far involves over 1300 incidents, several hundred vehicles damaged, and over $75,000 in estimated costs. In other words, there are several problems between people and bears every day.

Fortunately the light rains over the past couple of days have stopped for the moment, and I have the tent set up and the kids into it by 3am.

Yosemite in Winter!

This was quite an experience! I'm uploading photos, then I'll tell you about it shortly...

Fall in Yosemite Valley

Yosemite Valley, Labor Day Weekend

I went camping in Yosemite National Park over Labor Day weekend and swam in the plunge pools under several of the valley's waterfalls. One in particular stood out. There's little water left in this creek at this time of year, and I found a relatively secluded alcove near where the natural shower was falling. I had a flat rock in the sun, adjacent shade nearby for refuge as needed, and there was just enough water falling to cool off in the refreshing spray.

Reaching this spot one night about 30 minutes before sunset, I watched the light from the setting sun creep up the face of Half Dome. The other swimmers who had been enjoying the pool left, but I was able to stay since I had brought a headlamp for the return trip. As I flyfished for the next 20-30 minutes under the remaining alpenglow, the nearly-full moon rose over Glacier Point, bathing the scene in bright, pale light. Although the air started to get crisp, the rocks were radiating the heat they had been absorbing all day, so I was completely comfortable in my bathing suit.

With the calm pool, waterfall, sunset and moonrise, in perfect weather, this was one of the most romantic settings I've ever been in.

Next time I'll have to bring someone!

Jeff

Photos from the trip:
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8CatmzJu2aNGW&notag=1