Horsetail Fall

Interesting facts

The water leaves the cliff as two streams side by side; the western one falls about 480 metres through open air before hitting rock.

Among Yosemite's waterfalls that run at some point every year, only Ribbon Fall has a longer free-falling drop than Horsetail Fall.

Below its airborne plunge, the water slides about another 150 metres down steep granite slabs before reaching the valley side.

Ansel Adams photographed the waterfall in black and white decades before it became famous, under the title El Capitan Fall.

On a good evening the glow lasts only about ten minutes, and even light haze can weaken or erase it.

The sun lines up just as well in October, but by then the fall is almost always dry, so the effect is seen only in February.

Many widely shared images of the glow have been digitally enhanced, and in person the colours are usually softer than online pictures suggest.

Photographers have also captured the falling water lit by moonlight rather than by the setting sun.

Why it is worth it

Horsetail Fall is a seasonal waterfall that only exists when there's enough snow up on El Capitan to feed it — for much of the year the streak down the cliff's east face is simply dry rock. When it does run, it drops roughly 650 metres down the granite in a thin, wind-scattered plume, nowhere near Yosemite's biggest falls by volume, and for most of the year almost nobody photographs it.

For about two weeks in mid-to-late February, that changes completely. As the sun sets low enough in the southwest, its light hits the granite wall behind the falling water at an angle that makes the whole plume glow orange-to-red, as if lava were pouring down the cliff — a genuine optical effect, not a filter or an editing trick, first captured on film by photographer Galen Rowell in 1973. It only works if three things line up at once: enough snowpack earlier in the winter to keep water flowing, a completely clear western sky right at sunset, and the sun sitting at the narrow band of angles that only occurs around February 19–23 each year. Miss any one of the three — cloud cover, a dry winter, the wrong week — and there's no glow at all.

It's also worth untangling from an older, unrelated spectacle with almost the same name: from 1899 to 1968, Yosemite ran an actual man-made "Firefall," pushing glowing embers off Glacier Point each evening as a tourist show, until park managers ended it for environmental reasons. Horsetail Fall's natural light effect got nicknamed "firefall" decades later — same word, no connection — and the two are still frequently mixed up. Growing crowds chasing the natural version have pushed the park to manage the viewing areas with shuttles and closures during the two-week window each February.

Best time to visit

Roughly February 19–23 gives the best odds, with the glow starting 5–15 minutes before sunset — but only in a winter with enough snowpack and only on evenings with a clear western horizon. Some years it simply doesn't happen.

Getting there

88 km from Chowchilla. Mammoth Yosemite Airport (MMH) is about 70 km away.

Plan your visit

We have no confirmed visit data yet. Once it is confirmed, this block also carries the date it was checked.

Nearby places

El Capitan 1.0 km · rock-formation
Yosemite Falls 3.9 km · waterfall
Tunnel View, Yosemite 4.6 km · scenic-viewpoint
Glacier Point 4.9 km · scenic-viewpoint
Yosemite National Park 8.1 km · national-park
Half Dome 8.6 km · mountain

From the encyclopaedia

Horsetail Fall, located in Yosemite National Park in California, is a seasonal waterfall that flows in the winter and early spring. The fall occurs on the east side of El Capitan. If Horsetail Fall is flowing in February and the weather conditions are just right, the setting sun illuminates the waterfall, making it glow orange and red. This natural phenomenon is often referred to as the "Firefall", a name that pays homage to Yosemite Firefall, the manmade event that once took place in Yosemite.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0