Horsetail Fall at sunset, Yosemite
We’re getting close to Horsetail Fall season, and I’m getting lots of questions about the water flow and the right time of year to photograph it.
As I said in my last post, there’s a healthy snowpack at higher elevations of Yosemite. Badger Pass ski area still reports 60 inches of snow on the ground at the base of the mountain (7,200 feet), and 72 inches at the top (8,000 feet). Horsetail’s small drainage on top of El Capitan lies at similar elevations, but faces south, and the slopes of Badger Pass face north. That means Horsetail’s drainage gets more sun, and the snow melts faster. But there should still be at least three or four feet of snow on top of El Cap right now, and it’s hard to imagine how all of that could melt between now and the third week of February. After four years of drought, it looks like we’ll finally have a good flow in Horsetail Fall at the right time of year.
But water flow is just one element. You also need the sun to set at the right angle to backlight Horsetail and make it turn orange, yet have the cliff behind it in the shade, so that the glowing, backlit, orange water is set against a dark background. My best estimate is that this happens between February 16th and 23rd, and perhaps even a few days beyond. (I delve into more detail about all that here.)
And one more thing: you need clear skies to the west-southwest (especially low down near the horizon) just before sunset. That might be a lot to ask for in this wet, stormy, El Nino winter, but it’s likely to happen at least once between February 16th and 23rd. We’ll see!
To see the firefall effect you need a profile view of the waterfall from the east-southeast, without intervening trees. There are basically two spots for that in Yosemite Valley: about 200 yards east of the El Capitan picnic area along Northside Drive, and about one mile east of the El Capitan crossover on Southside Drive. My Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite book and app give more precise directions, but it’s hard to miss these spots; if you’re there at the right time there will be dozens of cars parked along the roads near both areas.
Actually “dozens” is probably an understatement. There will be big crowds this year. Really big. For the past four years there has been little or no flow in Horsetail Fall in February, so many, many photographers have been biding their time, waiting for the right conditions, and it finally looks like they will have them. I expect record numbers of photographers and viewers to be in the park during the third week of February, so if you go, be prepared. That means, first and foremost, having some patience and tolerance for your fellow photographers. Expect to be standing tripod-to-tripod with many others. Think of it as a social occasion, rather than a chance for solitude. Also, get to your chosen location at least two or three hours before sunset, both to secure a parking place, and to find a good spot to set up your tripod. (And if the crowds are really big this year, two to three hours might not be early enough.) Bring a folding chair, warm clothes, a thermos, and a book.
With that said, I hope it’s a great year for Horsetail, and that many people get to see the light show. It’s truly a spectacular event when conditions are right. Good luck!
— Michael Frye
Related Post: The Best Time to Photograph Horsetail Fall, Revised
Michael Frye is a professional photographer specializing in landscapes and nature. He is the author or principal photographer of The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite, Yosemite Meditations, Yosemite Meditations for Women, Yosemite Meditations for Adventurers, and Digital Landscape Photography: In the Footsteps of Ansel Adams and the Great Masters. He has also written three eBooks: Light & Land: Landscapes in the Digital Darkroom, Exposure for Outdoor Photography, and Landscapes in Lightroom: The Essential Step-by-Step Guide. Michael has written numerous magazine articles on the art and technique of photography, and his images have been published in over thirty countries around the world. Michael has lived either in or near Yosemite National Park since 1983, currently residing just outside the park in Mariposa, California.
Thanks for the update, Michael! I’ve photographed Yosemite for over 20 years but never really knew about the Horsetail Falls shot until the last year or so (why, I have no idea). I live in Colorado and will be making a trip out to Yosemite this year just to try to capture this image. So your updates and directions are very much appreciated. I also have both your book and your app and will use those as well.
Well that is a mystery Chris. 🙂 But good luck!
Hi Michael,
I’ll be up for the last few days of the window, so maybe I’ll luck out. My best image came in a similar circumstance, only I walked away convinced I’d seen nothing but the faintest wisp of orange. When I got the film back (Velvia 100), it was really vivid. I’m not sure how that experience relates to digital — but probably means underexpose a little. Here’s a link to the image: http://mjkatzphotography.photoshelter.com/gallery-image/Yosemite/G0000Hnp1DUJUy78/I0000YY6Ay1Fwb_4
Well good luck on your next attempt Michael!
Thanks for the post, Michael. I’ll be thinking of you that week. Hope you get some great shots.
You’re welcome Robin, and thanks. I may or may not photograph Horsetail. I’ve photographed it many times, and have some ideas for some different views, but they require special conditions.
Great discussion Michael. Good to hear that we’re all concurring that there should be enough snow on El Cap to produce the falls. I was in Yosemite last month and the falls were flowing, so I know we’re all keeping our fingers crossed that things stay this way for the next month.
I’ve written a little program that goes through the Sun Azimuth / Elevations and calculates the best dates (and times) to see the falls. As your dates suggested, the event really starts heating up on Feb 16th and goes through Feb 23. It looks like it should still be nice through Feb 26th or 27th. People could see it as early as Feb 12th, though it’s a small window and the light is very far towards the left side of the wall (as we know, it moves to the right of the wall each day).
The best date to see the falls glow is Feb 22, with +/- 1 day being almost equally as amazing. I ran the calculations for the next few years and it’s always Feb 20, 21, or 22nd as the “best” day. “Best” being defined as the sun being at most optimal azimuth and elevation for the event.
Viewing times range somewhere between 5:25pm and 5:45pm, with the Feb 20-24 dates having the longest window. I discuss it a little bit more here http://blog.aaronmphotography.com/2015/12/20/horsetail-falls-2016-yosemite-national-park/
As always, thanks for the updates and keeping us informed … and for taking so many amazing photos and sharing them with all of us!
Thanks for your comments Aaron, and for the confirmation about the dates. It sounds like you’ve done a lot of work figuring out the best times, which is great. I found it difficult to rely on those kind of calculations alone, because the topography of El Cap is so vertical that it’s difficult to pinpoint the exact location of Horsetail on a map, and also difficult to calculate the exact shape and angle of the Nose of El Cap in relation to Horsetail – something that has a big effect on the light on the fall in late February. How did you work around those problems?
Excellent points Michael. The “exact” (or close to exact) location of Horsetail can be obtained from a few ways: first it’s fairly trivial to view the location of Horsetail Falls from Google Earth, just by moving the view around. It’s helpful to look at a few of the rock cut-outs as well as the shape of the bend in the rock wall, as well as to look above the face, and see the way that water would flow down and over as it melts. Additionally, one could (and I’ve done this recently) “line” themselves up with the falls, from the road, and grab their latitude/longitude position, then draw a line to rock face to get the location of the falls. Next, going into TPE (The Photographer’s Ephemeris) it’s possible to line up which peaks the sun needs to be above in order to hit the falls, at what elevation and angle.
Of course, since the sun isn’t an exact pin-point light source, there’s some amount of “fudge factor” that has to be applied and can cause the calculation to be more of a guideline than of an exact time that it will absolutely light up. There’s some azimuth and some elevation variation that I account for that can either be too lenient or too restrictive, though from looking at peoples photos over the various years, I’ve been able to adjust slightly to help increase the accuracy.
You are correct in that it won’t be exact, but it does come close, and, at a minimum, gives us some indication of which days will have a longer window of time to see the event. When I visited in 2011, the day happened to be slightly cloudy, and for the first 5 minutes, the clouds blocked the view. They parted ways and the falls lit up as if a match had been under it. If the event had only been 3 minutes, that 5 minute of cloud could have killed the entire thing. While the calculation isn’t going to be exact, it does help to know which days have a better chance of seeing it, provided the conditions!
As always, excellent thoughts!
Thanks for clarifying this Aaron. Though I’ve used mostly on-the-ground observations, and you’ve used TPE and calculations of the topography and the sun’s azimuth, we’ve essentially reached the same conclusions, so that’s good confirmation. I just posted something with more observations from last night, which may shed a little more light on the beginning of the window. As you say, later in the window the period of best light lasts longer. Essentially this means that the light leaves the cliff behind the fall earlier in relation to sunset, so you get ideal light for a longer period of time before the light gets cut off by either the horizon or the Nose of El Cap. I made a photograph at 5:42 p.m. on Feb. 20th, 2012 that shows the light leaving the very bottom of the fall (as in Galen Rowell’s photograph), which means that the horizon was cutting off the light, not the Nose of El Cap. So even on the 20th you can see the red-orange sunset color on the fall. After that things get a little murkier, as I don’t have many photographs from Feb. 21st to 25th. Somewhere in that range the light starts getting cut off by the Nose of El Cap before the deepest color. Maybe I’ll get a chance to figure that out this year.
Thanks, Michael, for your update. Will be in Yosimite the week before as am out of town the following week. Don’t expect to hit the jackpot, but will give it my best shot anyway. Thanks again. Love your blogs.
You’re welcome Gail, and good luck!
Thanks for the update. I’m hoping to take my mom up to see the snow, but my trip has me there the 6th of February. But then going to Yosemite any time is a good time. Looking forward to seeing the images you get.
You’re welcome Lisa. You won’t see the dramatic “firefall” effect on Horsetail on February 6th, but then you might see something just as magical, like a beautiful clearing storm.
Thanks for the update. We were up to photograph the falls during the drought. Didn’t capture much but it was a fun experience to be there with the crowd of photographers. Thanks to your update, I’ll be headed up again.
You’re welcome Juls – good luck!
I was up three years ago for Horsetail Falls over President’s Day weekend… there weren’t dozens of photographers, there were hundreds if not a thousand. The Park Service closed down the left land of Southside Drive and turned it into parking. I can’t imagine how many people will be there now that we might actually have some water. Plus it’s President’s Day weekend, so the crowds are bigger anyway. I actually left early in disgust over the crowds that trip! That’s not what I’m looking for in a winter Yosemite trip!! 🙂
John, I understand how you feel. As I said, if you go you should be prepared to share the experience with lots of other people.
Thank you so much for the wonderful insights! We are from the Bay Area, and it’s our first trip to Yosemite. We’ll have our 6 year old son along, and will be doing some snow-shoeing and skiing by day, and then hope to catch the falls at sunset. We’ll be up the week before (Feb 12-15), but of course will try our best to capture the amazing beauty of the landscape and the falls, regardless of the color. Hubby is just starting out as a photography hobbyist, with a Nikon (something or another) and a 200mm lens. I like to “live the moment” while he tries to capture on film. He’s currently reading up on your photography of Yosemite, sort of a crash-course :-). No matter the size of the crowds over the holiday weekend, we always “make our own adventure” of everything we do. 😀 Looking forward to it!
You’re welcome Christine, and good luck. With clear skies to the west, Horsetail Fall should have plenty of color at sunset during February 12-15; what it won’t have is the shadow behind the fall that really sets that color off. But good photographs can be made of it at that time, for sure.
We were there on the 12th, our last night in Yosemite. Too early for Horsetail but we hung out anyway. Beautiful. I shot it in 2008, but even then it wasn’t ideal. Love your blog!
Thanks Victoria. Hope you get to see Horsetail with peak conditions someday.
I was there on the 15th and Horsetail put in a spectacular show…I took about 50 pictures from the Cathedral picnic area…I’ll post my annual pilgrimage to Horsetail on Facebook tmw or Friday….
I always follow your blog for Yosemite photographic events…Horsetail is the Holy Grail…
L.
Great Lyle – glad you had a good time and got some photos you like.
Thank you for all your stunning work and your helpful and interesting blog. I live in Big Pine so thedrive in the winter is a bit daunting, but it’s time to try again at capturing Horsetail. At my first effortI found myself in the company of zillions of apparently very wealthy photographers. I was intimidated and even got a bit of lens envy. To better select my site this year, which location affords the longest view of the falls, and could you recommend lens and settings? Thank you again. Hope to see you on the East Side some day.
You’re welcome Coco. I’m not sure what you mean by the “longest view.” Are you referring to how much of the waterfall you can see? If that’s the question, then the answer is the south side, but only by a little bit. From either the north side or south side you’ll want a long lens. From the north side a 200mm lens (on a full-frame sensor) is enough to fill the frame with the waterfall; from the south side you need something a little longer, like 300mm (though a slight crop of a 200mm lens works too). Settings vary a lot depending on the light level, so I can’t give you anything helpful there. Unless you have something in the foreground, a medium aperture like f/8 is a good choice. Shutter speed doesn’t matter unless the wind kicks up the spray, in which case you might want something reasonably fast, like 1/125th of a second. That might require pushing up the ISO a bit when the light is low (as it gets close to sunset) to keep the aperture at f/8; alternatively you could open up the aperture more. A polarizer helps earlier, when the cliff behind the fall is still lit, as it will cut the sheen on the wet rocks to the left of the fall. When the light gets really good and only the waterfall is lit the polarizer doesn’t matter. When judging exposures, look at the RGB histogram and make sure the red channel isn’t clipped; if it is, make a darker exposure.
Hi Michael – what are the forecasted viewing dates this Feb 2017?
Fire Falls happens ~Feb 14 through ~Feb 26 each year (+/- one day on each end), with the dates at the beginning and the end having a slightly shorter window. The light turns more red in the middle of the dates, with the “best” day occurring on either Feb 21 or Feb 22 each year. This year the “best” day happens to be on Feb 21, though any date in that range with clear skies will be great. Using a computer program to calculate when the sun is in the right spot for Fire Falls, I post the rough time estimates on when the falls will turn red on my blog at http://blog.aaronmphotography.com/2016/12/30/horsetail-falls-2017-yosemite-national-park
@Michael: On a recent trip I confirmed the GPS location of Horsetail, and also confirmed it’s location is visible on Google Earth! Happy hunting this year — with all the rain/snow it should be great! (fingers crossed I don’t jinx anything)
Thanks Aaron, that helps a lot! We’re in iceland catching the northern lights on Feb 21 and 22 so Feb 25 would be our attempt at the fire falls!
Thanks for chiming in here Aaron. As I said here and other places, the best dates for photographing Horsetail Fall are from February 16th through 23rd. While the 14th may look okay from calculations, on-the-ground results don’t confirm that; you don’t get the shadow on the cliff to the left of the fall on the 14th. I delve into more detail about this in a post I link to above, but I’ll add that link here too:
https://www.michaelfrye.com/2012/01/26/the-best-time-to-photograph-horsetail-fall-revised/
The end of the window is a bit harder to pin down. It may be that you can get optimal conditions on the 26th, but if so it would only be for a very brief window of time, making your odds of success small. So I’ll stick with the 23rd as the end of the window until I get photographic evidence that shows otherwise.
Thanks for giving this year’s dates. I plan on being up there from the 20th through the 22nd. If anyone is interested in meeting up and shooting togetm drop me an email. I tend to be the guy who is the first car parked in the prime areas and hang outy most of the day. Willing to try some different views if you know more than the usual North and Southside views.