ron_pierce2

I was lucky enough to see and photograph the "firefall on El Capitan", in 1978, under the perfect circumstances described at: <a href="http:/www.lucenaturale.com/firefall.htm.">Yosemite's Natural Firefall</a>, where the best of six or so photos I quickly snapped can be seen. All I know for sure is that it was on one of the last two Sundays in February that year, and it was blind luck --- I was leaving the Valley at dusk (now it's a one-way entrance road) after a weekend of XC skiing beyond Badger Pass, and saw it through an opening in the trees. I was so startled, and had no idea what I was looking at, that I almost drove off the road into the Merced River. Knowing I had no time to spare, I braced the camera against available tree trunks and snapped some photos. Other years I have been there at the same time and seen little or nothing --- it requires several days of unseasonably warm weather, to create much of a Horsetail Falls in winter, and the "alignment" with the setting sun can only be perfect for a couple of days. I am hoping to go up again this year, but I think that matching the extraordinary event of 1978 will be very difficult. Nonetheless, even a "partial" or small "firefall" is very beautiful.<div></div>