Firefall in Yosemite

[tgtaylor]

Horsetail Fall is putting on a show in Yosemite:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/offbeat/lava-waterfall-reappears-at-yosemite-national-park/vi-BBTQYb4

https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/national-international/Yosemite-Firefall-2019-506043811.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2019/02/20/sunlight-makes-this-waterfall-look-like-lava-photos-are-mesmerizing/?utm_term=.53654bf41168

About 24 seconds in on the first link shows one of the photographers with a 4x5 LF camera.

Note: Upper Pines campground is closed due to storm damage. Camp 4 is the only campground open right now.

Thomas

[Drew Wiley]

Thanks, but I'd rather see a dragonfly on a twig somewhere in the backcountry in solitude rather than jostle in the herd to photograph the millionth Firefall shot.

[Vaughn]

I have seen it once or twice or so. Got caught up in the parking frenzy at that end of the Valley one time...took me a while to figure out why there were so many cars parked where ever and lawn chairs in the meadow. I have photographs of the waterfall -- made a sweet little 2.25x3.25 platinum print with the 'firefall' way in the back. I posted it in the "Everything Else" thread.

I have a show in the Valley in April (4-person show) -- hope all is settled in the Valley by then. The reception in the 3rd week of April, so time for things to mellow out from the storm damage...depending on how the Spring floods are this year.

[Jerry Bodine]

Thanks, but I'd rather see a dragonfly on a twig somewhere in the backcountry in solitude rather than jostle in the herd to photograph the millionth Firefall shot.

+1
My dad (a fisherman) had a saying about crowds gathering shoulder-to-shoulder: "It's like opening day of trout season." It's an experience I've always avoided, since the one (and only) time I backpacked with a group and was pressured by others (not LFers) who wanted to move on rather than wait for nature to provide the precise moment to trip the shutter.

[Drew Wiley]

If I'm backpacking with others, it's only one or two at the most, and they're well vetted about what LF photography involves. It generally goes very well, no matter what type of camera gear they personally prefer. But I don't like gear talk on the trail. Better things to do.

[Jerry Bodine]

If I'm backpacking with others, it's only one or two at the most, and they're well vetted about what LF photography involves...

After that one fiasco, my only companions were a Linhof LF user and a mutual friend (non-LFer) who was content simply to tag along quietly to enjoy the trip and help divvy up our load and share his sense of humor (he appreciated our mindset).

[Tin Can]

Firefall phenom is uniquely ‘seen’ by humans. The ‘beasts’ do not participate.

I dislike crowds yet to be a bug on the wall to that magnificent effect would be best in person and fully experienced in the moment than capturing nature’s soul. Stilts!

Similarly during the recent Total Solar Eclipse I just stood in my front yard and enjoyed the event. I am very glad I did not setup my camera gear purchased just for the event.

My goal for the next one is to be in the forest and if I live that long I can do that very close to home.

[tgtaylor]

I shot it once with a 400mm Takumar lens on the 67II. It wasn't running the previous day but just as we were leaving we saw the falls running and drove ovefr to get the very last parking spot inside the El Cap parking area. I set-up in the snow well back of the crowd for the perspective it offered for the lens but I only had one frame of Fuji Reala color negative left so waited for the optimum moment to trip the shutter. I didn't get the "lava" but I did capture an excellent "horsetail":

https://www.spiritsofsilver.com/yahoo_site_admin/assets/images/Horsetail_Falls_2.58130126_large.jpg

I'm after a 20x24" SG of Bridalveil, printed on FB paper, split-toned with selenium and gold, and mounted using TruVue Museum Glass for the wall. Going to cast a good $200 or so without factoring in the gas for the wall and I need a negative so I may see Vaughn when I'm in the Valley.

Thomas

[Vaughn]

...I'm after a 20x24" SG of Bridalveil...Thomas
Hope to see you there! I have a couple images of BV Falls I like to put up on the wall occasionally -- hiking up the old Big Flat Road for an image across the Valley at BV has always been one of my favorite views.

A MF platinum of the 'firefall', and two carbons: the 'classic' roadside view and at the base of BV.

[GoldMark]

Thx

[Drew Wiley]

The only time I was there - I mean right there - it was totally frozen. And the Valley was nearly vacant. They didn't even bother to plow any turnouts. There was a huge ice cone right under the fall, so me and my nephew hacked our way up there with ice axes. Then I chiseled off the top for a tripod platform for my Sinar and got a couple of very unique shots well up alongside the cliff. Big flakes of frozen ice would break free of the cliffs above and catch the wind and come crashing into the deep snow down below. Then the wind quited down and and a chunk about twenty feet across that must have weighed a couple of tons crashed only about sixty feet away. Time to get out of Dodge; and it was one thrill ride back down with that big pack on!

[John Kasaian]

A hiker got killed by falling rock/ice on the Mist Trail yesterday. Of course the trail had been closed (posted sign & closed gate) Sad.

[Tin Can]

Yes, very sad and happening all over. We elders often set bad examples. I know I have.

Locally in the flatlands of Illinois we lose a number of climbers every year.

https://www.mountainproject.com/area/106612569/giant-city-state-park




A hiker got killed by falling rock/ice on the Mist Trail yesterday. Of course the trail had been closed (posted sign & closed gate) Sad.

[Drew Wiley]

Ha! Randy - I bet if you had access to all the ER statistics, you'd probably discover more people get broken bones from slipping on the front porch shoveling snow in the Midwest each winter than all mountain accidents combined; and even most mtn incidents occur because flatlanders are allowed into the mountains to begin with. Heck, there are already monitored entrance gates to the Parks. Just turn back anyone with Midwestern i.d, plus all tour buses, of course. And real climbers have been known to come down from a particularly difficult climb and slip on some little iced up footbridge at the bottom and break their neck. It's happened more than once. Don't know how I survived all my own youthful stupidity.

[Two23]

I take a lot calculated risks when I go out. Last Sunday drove ~300 miles in a blizzard. Only got stuck in a drift once. My thinking is I'm an adult and take responsibility for myself. Don't need no mommy government to take care of me. The states in my region respect that. My favorite photographer is FJ Haynes from Fargo. I love the fact I can still take adventurous photos like he did. I too am an experienced outdoorsman and go out well equiped. I think knowing I'm on my own in often brutal conditions makes me more careful. I don't have the expectation of a government helicopter coming to the rescue if I get into deep shit.


Kent in SD

[John Kasaian]

My goal these days is not to end up being a poster boy for stupidity LOL!

[Vaughn]

My goal these days is not to end up being a poster boy for stupidity LOL!
I suppose that is why it is not called being a poster man of stupidity -- hopefully we learn (or die). I tend to think that is better (the learning part) than never having pushed it to the edge a few times. Like hiking on a ridge trail in the redwoods during a wind storm...there are time(s) in one's life when that is to be experienced -- hearing branches breaking off 300 feet above you somewhere...dumbass thing to do. But then so was fighting forest fires in the wilderness with a shovel...

[John Kasaian]

I suppose that is why it is not called being a poster man of stupidity -- hopefully we learn (or die). I tend to think that is better (the learning part) than never having pushed it to the edge a few times. Like hiking on a ridge trail in the redwoods during a wind storm...there are time(s) in one's life when that is to be experienced -- hearing branches breaking off 300 feet above you somewhere...dumbass thing to do. But then so was fighting forest fires in the wilderness with a shovel...
Of course, but there are different situations.
That unfortunate hiker also put the crew that had to retrieved her body in peril.
Her indiscretion endangered more than her just own life.
Things fall off cliffs, and that is the nature of the environment but when things are actively falling off cliffs above you, then it's time to get out of Dodge City.

[Drew Wiley]

The most popular Parks inherently attract the largest quantity of Darwin Award types. I took that popular Rae Lakes hike in Kings Can last Sept to keep an eye on an even older friend. We are highly experienced backpackers, so both tended to hand out quite a bit of weather and proper clothing and tent advice to novices. Most were grateful; a couple of young speed hikers were not. Just a week later in the same area another backpacking pal had to spend the whole night pacing in the snow so two ill-equipped ladies could use his tent and sleeping bag; otherwise, they would have been dead long before morning. And it's those know-it-all speed hikers or trail runner that have ruined some of my vacations, having to loan them a spare coat and follow them hobbling out after they twisted and ankle or knee on the trail. I understand the lightwt craze, and even did that kind of thing long before it was popularized. The Indians did it for millennia. They were highly adapted and knew where all kinds of caves and rock shelters were; but nobody knows how many of them got caught out in the open and lost lives. The weather was probably the least of their worries.

[aaronnate]

Crowds or not the full Yosemite experience is on my bucket list.

[Drew Wiley]

Then you should see some of the other 92% of Yosemite Park besides Yosemite Valley! Better have a big bucket. There are entire sections you can walk for a week with only a 50/50 chance of seeing another person; and it only gets better south of the Park itself.

[SergeyT]

We should probably ask what "the full Yosemite experience" is

[John Kasaian]

We should probably ask what "the full Yosemite experience" is

It probably has something to do with bears.
That and driving around looking for a parking space in order to catch the tram, LOL!.

[aaronnate]

We should probably ask what "the full Yosemite experience" is

Start at one end and go to the other with my cameras in each season. Photograph the big walls, climb a little of the big walls just to say I had my hands and feet on them, sleep a few nights in camp 4, be at the top to watch and photograph someone summit each, since I never will. Photograph the falls and the valley in each season. Photograph mirror lake, Tenya lake, upper cathedral lake, and Mono Lake. Etc... Want more?

Most of these are a younger man's dreams when I was wanting to and working toward summiting El' Capitan with a friend, even though we had not seen it in person. A wrist injury took my climbing dreams, and age is chipping away at the rest. I can dream and someday do some of it.

So yes, Firefall is on my bucket list.

Bears? 2005 while Lying flat on my stomach in a shallow bowl near the top of Wolf Creek Pass photographing some wild orchids I found, I smelled something bad, heard a big branch break followed by huffing. I looked up and a freaking bear was on its hind legs looking down at me. Biggest damned animal I have ever seen outside a zoo, and scared the crap out of me. Not a little black bear either, this thing was sandy brown,huge, humped back (I saw it as it walked away) and a massive head. Glad I did not look tasty. After that experience, yes, seeing a bear from the safety of my car sounds like the best way to do it.

[Drew Wiley]

What more ?????????? You've just described the tiny 2% of the area which I always avoid. And I mean 2% of Yosemite Park itself, and not of the considerably larger Sierra Nevada, which contains numerous spectacular glacial valleys, thousands of lakes and peaks, and thank goodness, no roads across the range south of Hwy 120 in Yosemite itself. Grizzlies have been extinct in Calif since the 1920's. I've run into them in Yellowstone. Had a lot of cute black bears (including cinnamon colored ones) around camp in Kings Canyon last year. They're opportunists; but the wild ones tend to mind their own business unless careless tempted with food, and are fairly small with sleek fur. The Yosemite Valley Yogi Bear types look obese (up to twice the wt of wild bears) and have scruffy fur - the sign of a junk food diet, which they teach their cubs. Same with coyotes; the trash eaters look mangy.

[photostockeditor]

This is Great!!!!!!

[John Kasaian]

Don't get me wrong, the Valley is a magical place and people from all over the world come to see it and I certainly hope aaronate gets his chance. Next week I heard a prediction for the weather to reach the 70s, so the waterfalls should be cooking, the skeeters still rare, and the crowds minimal (mid week anyway.)
But the enjoyable parts of Yosemite are well past the ends of the roads, and the Valley during the tourist season will be a massive frustration as it has been for at least the past four decades so I'd consider Sequoia and Kings Canyon as alternatives if you're in this neck of the woods May-October.

[Vaughn]

It is an interesting challenge photographing in Yosemite Valley -- to be at a well documented place with all the tripod holes to trip over, but yet make an image that is yours. I enjoy it. I posted this image recently, but here it is again.

Bryce and Calder. 2012
Yosemite Valley
Printed (Pt/pd) 2019

[Drew Wiley]

Ran into a nice fella working out with an ultralight pack a couple days ago. My own pack was in the opposite category. He said he wanted to do the Muir Trail south to north in June. I told him it would be suicide. Six people died last year early season at the South Fork of the Kings crossing alone, where the bridge is still out. The degree of runoff depends not only on extant snowpack, but just how fast it gets hot in June, and by how much. Public flooding downstream is more a matter of foolhardy development on the flood plains and riverbeds in the San Joaquin Valley. I've seen entire subdivisions swept away in "once in a thousand year floods" - which came five years in a row in my lifetime, plus several other times, which would logically make me 10,000 years old.

[John Kasaian]

Ran into a nice fella working out with an ultralight pack a couple days ago. My own pack was in the opposite category. He said he wanted to do the Muir Trail south to north in June. I told him it would be suicide. Six people died last year early season at the South Fork of the Kings crossing alone, where the bridge is still out. The degree of runoff depends not only on extant snowpack, but just how fast it gets hot in June, and by how much. Public flooding downstream is more a matter of foolhardy development on the flood plains and riverbeds in the San Joaquin Valley. I've seen entire subdivisions swept away in "once in a thousand year floods" - which came five years in a row in my lifetime, plus several other times, which would logically make me 10,000 years old.

Yeah, that early run off will suck a guy under and there's no rescue possible once that happens. Sadly, it happens every year.

[tgtaylor]

On my first trip ever to the park I was driving a stake bed truck from the east bay loaded with, ironically, Kodak disposable cameras and film to the parks commissary. This was right before a major holiday, I forget now which, and the park needed the film and cameras for the expected park visitors. That was back during the UPS strike and I was working as a salesman for a courier company but did long distance deliveries when it got real busy. After I delivered the kjodak stuff to the commjssary I stopped at Yosemite Falls and walked back in and took a drink from the ice cold falling water which is supposidly quite pure after falling several thousand feet.

But the actual “Yosemite Experience” is personal – at least for me it was. It wasn't the occurrence set out above but for me it came during my first multi-day backpack in the park. Heading to Vogelsang I think I took a wrong turn and ended up in this beautiful wilderness meadow looking up to a 2000 foot climb that appeared to be straight up. That's when it came upon me- the beauty of the landscape and the wilderness of it with no other person in the area. It was exciting!

Thomas

[John Kasaian]

IMHO, Yosemite needs to be a multi day experience, just to let the beauty "sink in."

[Drew Wiley]

You actually drank out of Yosemite Creek at the waterfall, Thomas? Yecch! Lucky you didn't get giardia. The water might be OK coming down early season from Mt Hoffman above Hwy 120; but the eight miles of trail below the road to the edge of the valley sees a lot of neophyte hikers; and gosh knows what else might feed into that creek from campgrounds. For a number of years I shared an office with a fellow whose license plate read, YOSMTE CRK. Every summer he went with some pals to the same secret campsite upstream from the road while the creek was still running. There are no official trails upstream. He past away two years ago.

[Mike in NY]

Thanks for posting the falls, Thomas. I've traveled in 30 states, but have never made it to Yosemite. Like others, it's on my list, but I don't do well with crowds. As for safety in the field, the only "duh" thing I've done was when I was canoeing in the Croton River, photographing ospreys. The Croton is a small tributary of the Hudson River, near where I live, and I know its ins and outs. I decided I wanted to go to a wetlands about a mile down the Hudson, to photograph herons and egrets. So I went out into the currents of the Hudson; no big deal if you know the tidal schedule (the tides still impact the river flow that far north). Now if you know the Hudson, you know it is incredibly wide at places. I noticed a barge off in the distance, but didn't give it any thought until I saw its wake coming at me a minute later. I was parallel to it and knew to turn into it, but I was in my long canoe, not my kayak, and didn't know how the canoe would behave. I had a few seconds to decide whether to quickly pack my camera in my waterproof container and then in the remaining second turn into the wake, or to take the additional seconds to position the canoe and take the risk of not packing the camera, or try to make a break for it and paddle for shore. It was a split second decision; I packed my camera, and then made for the shore. Too late; the wake was faster than me, and swamped the canoe. Thank god nothing was damaged but my ego as a few people on shore watched.

[Vaughn]

IMHO, Yosemite needs to be a multi day experience, just to let the beauty "sink in."
I like the old story about the Yosemite ranger who was asked what to do in the Valley if you only had an hour to spend there. Story goes that he replied that he'd go down to the Merced River and cry. I grew up camping in the Valley and up at Tuolumne Meadows, so no sudden realization...just a growing love. I did not start backpacking until my teens.

It helps that for a couple decades, a good friend and curator for the Ansel Adams Gallery lived behind the gallery and I had an open invitation to visit...even to bring my boys. Half Dome visible from the deck while Yosemite Falls boomed behind us. I'll be there in April (27th) for a show opening at the gallery...always nice at that time of year. I have given a few workshops at the gallery in April -- snow, rain, and sun in the same week!

I have worked a summer on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, spent some time in Zion, many trips to Death Valley, and of course Yosemite Valley -- always places to go to easily get away from the tourists...even at these high-visitation Parks.

[Drew Wiley]

I routinely "commuted" between summer backpack trips on the east side of the range over Tioga Pass to my mountain property south of the Park, which means I'd go right through the lower end of Yosemite Valley. I rarely stopped. Too eager to get a good shower, clean my gear, and rest my feet for a few days before returning to work here on the coast. But I once darn near dove into the Merced near the meadow just to avoid getting run over. All the cars insanely whizzing by honking. Why do they even bother coming. Rush to see this, rush to see that ... see nothing, really. Totally different than my experience on the upper Merced (Lyell Fork) three summers ago - nobody in sight for an entire week out of the two-week trip; pure water. Mile after mile, lake after lake, with no sign of human presence at all - no footprints, no campfire rings, no trails, not even any trail "ducks", no gum wrappers, no rangers or lazy obese bears. Just some broken obsidian chips from ancient bighorn sheep hunters. Even the eagles and dragonflies were almost tame. That's my idea of "Yosemite".

[Mike in NY]

At least I don't have to go to Yosemite to see bears. I had one in the back yard last September. I came around a corner of the house and nearly bumped into it. I don't know which one of us was more startled. Everything I've ever learned to do when confronted with a bear went right out of my head. I yelled a stream of profanities, turned and dashed for the back door.

[Vaughn]

...Even the eagles and dragonflies were almost tame. That's my idea of "Yosemite".

I backpack in the Yolla Bollys for that.

We hold our family reunions up there (and it is Bigfoots, not Bigfeet).:cool:

[Drew Wiley]

"Bigfoots" ... Reminds me of an old joke. How do you know the toothbrush was invented in Mississippi? Because it's called a toothbrush and not a teethbrush.

[John Kasaian]

Lots of damage from the heavy snow and windfall in Yosemite Valley. Both Upper and Lower Pines are closed while they're removing dead trees. The lavatories and Curry tents appear to have gotten hammered pretty good as well
https://abc30.com/weather/delays-cancellations-in-yosemite-after-snowstorms-cause-major-damage/5190817/