Yosemite Horsetail "Fire" Fall February 12-26, 2018

If you want to view/photograph the Horsetail Fall phenomenon this year, you need to have a free parking reservation available online Saturday February 3, 2018 at 9:00 am PST: Yosemite National Park Announces Pilot Program for Horsetail Fall Event February 12-26, 2018 - Yosemite National Park (U.S. National Park Service)

Dieter, shhhhh.... Don’t let everybody know or it’ll be too crowded. :)

 

Seriously, I have never gone, but it seems to be very crowded. Thanks for sharing.

When I lived in northern CA, I made a yearly trip to try to capture the fire fall. There are 500 to 1000 photographers there daily all in a small area trying to recapture Galen Rowell's iconic photo. They are drawn irresistibly to this huge rock and all have cameras on tripods all pointing at the same spot on the wall where hopefully there will be a falls and hopefully It will turn cherry red. I thought all it needed was those notes from Close Encounters with all the folks drawn irresistibly to Devils Tower. Yes I did play the music during this shoot. In the movie Richard Dreyfus had been obsessed with the rock formation and at the dinner table for an unknown reason fashioned Devil's Tower from mashed potatoes. Here is the 3 lbs of mashed potatoes I fashioned into El Capitan with ketchup as the red falls. Lit with 2 lights and had a dozen folks who wanted their photo taken with it. Once they realized what it was about, we all had a great time with it. Of all the tens of thousands of fire fall photos, I guarantee this one has never been taken before.

 

A polaroid type shot of the potatoes and the wall.

 

Photoshop is your friend....;)

When I lived in northern CA, I made a yearly trip to try to capture the fire fall. There are 500 to 1000 photographers there daily all in a small area trying to recapture Galen Rowell's iconic photo. They are drawn irresistibly to this huge rock and all have cameras on tripods all pointing at the same spot on the wall where hopefully there will be a falls and hopefully It will turn cherry red. I thought all it needed was those notes from Close Encounters with all the folks drawn irresistibly to Devils Tower. Yes I did play the music during this shoot. In the movie Richard Dreyfus had been obsessed with the rock formation and at the dinner table for an unknown reason fashioned Devil's Tower from mashed potatoes. Here is the 3 lbs of mashed potatoes I fashioned into El Capitan with ketchup as the red falls. Lit with 2 lights and had a dozen folks who wanted their photo taken with it. Once they realized what it was about, we all had a great time with it. Of all the tens of thousands of fire fall photos, I guarantee this one has never been taken before.

 

[ATTACH]1231247[/ATTACH]

I love this.

Probably an easy night to get into the Awhanee (excuse me, I mean the newly renamed Majestic Yosemite Hotel, lol) for dinner. :)

Fred, please tell me they haven't renamed the Awhanee. For folks first visiting, Ansel Adams was a pianist there before he became a photographer and his piano is still played in the restaurant. I thought "Kodachrome" was an appropriate request. The Ansel Adams gallery has wonderful guided photo walks full of great information and insights into Ansel like the reason he was first contacted by the government to make images for train station advertisements of the National Park was he was cheap.

I wish I could say it ain't so, but it's so. Evidently, there was a dispute between the U.S. Government, which owns the property, and the outgoing concessionaire of the hotel, Delaware North, which claimed rights to the trademarked name. I'll tell you, though, I called it Candlestick Park to the end (now gone in favor of condos on the windy peninsula), not 3Com Park or Monster Park as some corporations would have liked! And I'll always think of and refer to it as the Awhanee. It's worth it for the ambiance as opposed to the food or prices! And the only change for the better I could see is that men no longer have to wear sports jackets, although I think collared shirts are required and still no flip flops are allowed, which seems appropriate. Last couple of times I went to Yosemite, I stayed at the lodge, much more casual, and it was off season, so I got a pretty good deal. Nice thing now is, once you park your car, you really don't need it because the shuttle system around the park is great and the glacier trail, which is the one I wanted to hike, starts right in the valley not far from the lodge.

Fred, sorry to hear that. It has an incredible history of visitors including heads of state from all over the world. Living 3,000 miles away instead of 4 hrs by car, I no longer make my annual trek there for the Firefall. This time of year isn't crowded but I found that early May, all the falls were wonderful and the summer crowd had not yet arrived.