it was suppose to be the best day to photograph it, but it never did get red / orange... i stood there for 3 hrs in hopes it would. lol

the last time i took a photo of it was back in 2003, and back then, there was no problem finding a place to park and get a good spot, but yesterday was unreal... on both sides (going in and going out of the park), they had parts of the lanes sectioned off so people could pull over to get a shot... that meant that only one lane was open to drive (just for a while)... but personally, it irritated me that the park (IMO) basically advertised it by putting up road signs telling you where to pull over to do it. this created traffic jams galore.

i went to my old spot to where only about 50 were, but on the other side of the park, i saw at least 200 people (and that was 3 hrs before it was to happen, so i'm sure even more people showed up).

i was kinda disappointed that it wasn't the color i was hoping for, but it was still a beautiful day there, and it was still pretty.


when it was all over (and people were getting in their cars to leave), talk about traffic jam! it took a long time to get out of the park to go home.

another one with more detail.

That's pretty cool.

Nice pictures. We didn't get to go this year.

Very nice. Good job!

That's about the extent of the color as was on Friday the 19th. Traffic was crazy but I believe the worst, ever, was Saturday the 20th.



edit: The count on the south side drive was 300...some guy was running around counting folks. It was estimated on Saturday, the same location viewers numbered 1000.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/24/2016 09:02AM by hikerchick395.

19 Feb 2016 just before turning from gold to red the sun faded

Wow! looks like a volcano! No wonder people who only see pictures of Yosemite (without ever having been there) think everything's photo-shopped.

How much of the red/orange lava color hitting the wall is natural (without adjusting exposure or other camera settings)? From my experience with the naked eye, I haven't really seen any of the lava color. It's more yellow/gold at the start, followed by pink/purple. Only a hint of lava color in the middle. The cameras I've used were more limited, but I had to adjust the exposure (darken the background a bit) for the waterfall to really light up, and have the lava color, in my pictures.

I love it when the mini dome at the top is lit up, like in Hikerchick's photo, which really makes it seem like lava is spilling out of there. Depending on how the light hits the wall, you can get multiple "lava streams" coming from the dome.

This one was from 11 Feb 2011. Desired color but early in the time window so the sunlight didn't narrow to light up only the falls. This one really did glow red to the naked eye. (And in the river reflection!)

This year (2016,) last week some photographers got light on the little falls on the left side of Horsetail, too. But my favorite from this year is a photo of Horsetail with a heart shape formed in the mist...taken on Valentine's Day. (Taken by Irene Bergamini)

Quote
hikerchick395

This one was from 11 Feb 2011. Desired color but early in the time window so the sunlight didn't narrow to light up only the falls. This one really did glow red to the naked eye. (And in the river reflection!)

Weather permitting, Horsetail Fall gets the reddest early on (the second week of February) because that's when the sun gets the lowest on the horizon before it sets behind the hills.

Each passing day the sun sets further north along the horizon where the hills that block the sun start to rise. Hence, the sunlight gets blocked by the hills while higher up in the sky and before the setting rays have a chance to become a vibrant alpine glow red.