Experiencing Firefall in Yosemite National Park

yosemite's firefall is an amazing natural wonder that depends heavily on clouds and snowfall and that can happen towards the middle to end of february each year i got a chance to see it in 2019 but i really wanted to experience it with my dad since he's been coming to the park for over 40 years and was responsible for introducing me to it when i heard it was happening again in 2021 i grabbed passes to enter the park and hope for the best while the experience is pretty crazy with the amount of people there with you during the 10 minutes when firefall happens it's one of the most beautiful things i've ever seen here's how we spent 24 hours in the park picked up the old man we're leaving southern california and we're headed to yosemite our trip began with a long drive through the grapevine headed north of course when you're in the area in and out is always the number one stop [Music] number two animal style way to go after leaving in and out it was about three hours to our hotel in oakhurst where we were spending the night firefall headed to fireball baby here we go so we drove up from southern california last night we stayed at our hotel in oakhurst and today we're heading into yosemite national park to hopefully catch firefall if you follow this blog then you know i love donuts and whenever i'm in oakhurst i always stop at judy's if you don't know what to get i highly recommend the blueberry old fashioned that's my personal favorite from there it's only about a 25 minute drive to the park's entrance you did have to have advanced reservations when we went but i believe they're discontinuing this soon entered the park and they gave us this thing for viewing the firefall so lots of restrictions this year note that from when you enter the park at the southern entrance it's still a good 45 minutes to an hour to get to the valley this is definitely my favorite way to enter the park though as going through the tunnel and seeing tunnel view is one of the most amazing experiences you can have in the entire united states [Music] we made it to yosemite national park tunnel view is always an incredibly popular part of the park but due to the reservation system there weren't that many people there when we went this is how a professional takes photos tripod with a phone tunnel view is such an amazing viewpoint in yosemite and you get great views of el capitan half dome out in the distance bridal veil fall and just the entire valley out in front of you as you head down from tunnel view i always love seeing el capitan as you're driving into the valley along the main road we got into the park pretty early so we decided just to explore for a while before setting up for firefall and our first stop was at swinging bridge even if we don't get firefall it's an absolutely perfect day in yosemite that's the shot right there where pops is epic reflections this is definitely one of my favorite places to see yosemite falls and i've been here tons of times but i still can't get over how amazing the reflection is here's el capitan right here and then horsetail falls is this spot right here so that's where the firefall happens you can tell that that's why it doesn't happen every year is that there's not even a ton of water flow this year coming off of there but there is enough to create the fire fall continuing on we made it to another yosemite falls viewpoint across from the lodge and next to the chapel [Music] i know it's going to get crazy busy later but there's actually not a lot of people here right now [Music] pops found a good spot to take a break [Music] it's actually a better break spot from this direction [Music] the chapel was actually open so we were able to peek our head in and see it i've only been in here once or twice on my previous trips they have some pretty epic shots look at this one of the church with a crazy zoom lens we're basically just hanging out exploring the park until we get set up for firefall this is one of my favorite views in the park with the chapel and then yosemite falls right there this is where we saw bear during the summer you can see that video up here flood water level in 1997 reached that high that's insane when you cross this bridge heading towards the valley and the store this is one of my favorite views in all of yosemite right here with half dome and the merced river [Music] pops capturing those dope photos oh yeah crazy reflections right now after soaking in the views we headed over to the yosemite village heading into the snore to pick up some snacks for our firefall waiting horse tail fall signs are all over the park apparently other people had the same idea as us all of the prepackaged sandwiches are gone all right we're going with plan b we've got to go up to deakins to get lunch [Music] it's about 11 30 we're driving to the el capitan picnic area because that's where you can shoot firefall from you can drive there until noon we're gonna go scope by the spot then come back and do the walk back to the okay picnic area the only place you're really allowed to see firefall this year was along the northside drive near the el capitan picnic area so we decided to drive down there scope out a spot and then do the one and a half mile walk from the parking area [Music] it's currently about 12 o'clock still walking around trying to find the best spot to take photos all right i found a good spot hopefully walking back to get my stuff and then i'm setting up and it'll be a long waiting game today basically what i was looking for was a good viewpoint without trees blocking the view of el capitan it's actually pretty hard to find that as there's definitely a lot of tree cover in this area and you're going to want to get there really early if you want a shot like this so while my dad's waiting for firefall i got us checked in to the lodge this is our room right here [Music] pretty nice spot i got lucky that i was able to find a reservation for one night at the lodge i highly recommend that you try to find a reservation in the park if you can as it's crazy trying to get out of the park after firefall [Music] according to this pamphlet they gave me a check in we are here on february 22nd which is better than very very good but yesterday was the absolute best day apparently i brought my blix bike so that i could take it down to where we're watching firefall this is the way to do firefall got all my stuff loaded up on the bike much easier for this event they shut off one entire lane for biking and walking so it makes it pretty easy to get back and forth from your viewing area without having to worry about cars when i got back at around 1 30 there was already at least 100 people waiting near me people over there in the trees people right there people over there and people over here crazy amount of people that's my firefall spot right there it's about 2 30 right now we can see how many people are here there was only three of us when we got here at about noon but three hours to go all these people already here you get to know the people that you're sitting next to pretty well and there's a lot of camaraderie as you're experiencing this natural wonder together putting out the good vibes with a firefall red beer we got an hour left before firefall all the professionals have set up their photos ready to see some magic if you're wondering about my photography setup i had a sony a7r iii with a 70-200 lens and i had a sony a7s3 with a 24 to 105 lens my dad was the true professional shooting with an iphone 8. 15 minutes to go pops is about to experience his first firefall this is incredible just the way the light focuses on that area it's like a like a spotlight's been shown on it or something it's just fascinating as the last few minutes start to count down the anticipation builds as the light moves across the wall and everybody's praying for no clouds it's just about happening when the experience finally starts cheers are heard throughout the entire valley as everybody just stares up at the waterfall as it changes colors [Music] the firefall is unbelievable it just keeps changing and it literally looks like lava flowing off the top of the mountain these are just a few of the highlights but you can watch the entire firefall unedited experience in another video on my channel i'll link to in the [Applause] description [Music] all right pops what'd you think of your first firefall experience it was incredible my gosh the way that the light focuses on that and i think it's something you wouldn't see anywhere else in the world it's just amazing it's just amazing one of the coolest yosemite experiences you've ever had one of the coolest usm experiences i have ever had my gosh all right who gets to take the bike back i'd like to any question i'll catch you later before everyone says i'm mean i let my dad ride the bike i will say it was absolutely crazy how the crowds were when you were leaving it felt like you were leaving a rock concert as you made the one and a half mile walk back to your car also we didn't have to drive out but i have to imagine it takes a few hours to get out of the park made it back to the hotel after checking out firefall highly recommend you book a hotel here as the traffic is absolutely horrible getting out of there now that was one of the coolest experiences i've ever had in yosemite it was definitely better than the firefall i saw a couple years ago which you can see here now we're going to find something to eat everybody talking about how pops doesn't eat healthy look we got the chili cheese there's beans in here and this is fruit pretty exhausted but since we're already at the lodge we figured we might as well go to lower yosemite falls and take a few pictures before calling it at night i don't know if you can see that but you can hear the waterfall out there here are a few of the photos that i took at night of yosemite falls [Music] good morning it is 5 50 and i've always wanted to see sunrise from tunnel view so we're up early to go catch it so i severely underestimated the amount of photographers that were going to be here today i should have probably realized that firefall is what draws the most photographers to yosemite during this time of the year so of course everybody would be up for sunrise at one of the most popular spots it was still worth it though as there was some awesome pink light above half dome [Music] the thing that's crazy about shooting in yosemite is all the planes that come through it's currently five plane lines one two three four five not the best for photography [Music] too many clouds so the light didn't end up coming through but still a pretty cool sunrise spot we're gonna go shoot a few more spots in the valley every time i see el capitan i can't help but think of free solo let me know if you saw that movie in the comments made it down to the cathedral beach parking area i've always wanted to get a reflection shot of the three brothers right there so hopefully we can find a good way down there in the snow and find that shot there's no way to drive in here but this is the normal parking area for the spot during the summer wandered all around here trying to find the view and i found kind of what i wanted but unfortunately the water level is not too high for the reflection but still still yosemite [Music] all right heading back to the car it's about 8 30 now so we're gonna get some breakfast not sure what we're gonna do if we're gonna stay in the park or if we're gonna take off but we're definitely not gonna sit for another five hours to wait for firefall again got a breakfast burrito and a coffee don't worry pops is being healthy he got a veggie breakfast right here to go with the chili dog from last night my dad decided to go back to the room but i wanted to go to yosemite falls one more time before we leave this view walking up to yosemite falls is definitely one of my favorite views in the park look at how you can see the waterfall lower and upper so good [Music] [Music] so cool i don't want to pull myself away with that rainbow and awesome soft light but my dad wants to go to iwani so we're heading over there [Music] the awani was one of the stops on my parents honeymoon so it always holds a special place in my dad's heart it's a pretty incredible place to see though if you've never been and it's a great place to just sit and relax while you're in the valley [Music] this is the iwani hotel is the historic hotel in the park and it's absolutely incredible check it out there's a small seasonal waterfall right on the other side of the iwani never seen that before one of the best things about the iwani is the large main room they have on the bottom floor during the cold winter nights they also usually have fires roaring in the fireplace we're hoping to spend more time with the iwani but they don't serve coffee right now because of cobids so we're heading on since i was only able to get reservations for one night and we didn't want to fight the firefall traffic on the way out of the park we decided to get going at around 1pm for the drive back to southern california we had grabbed coffee at deegan's on the way out and we decided to sit and drink it and just hang out at valley view one of the best spots in the valley it's our second to last stop of this trip one more stop at tunnel view and we're heading home [Music] just like that our time in yosemite is done one of the coolest ones we've ever done with firefall absolutely hopefully you enjoyed this video we'll see you on the next one [Music] you

Channel: California Through My Lens

Views: 294,665

Keywords: yosemite national park, nature photography, firefall yosemite, yosemite firefall, yosemite valley, firefall 2021, yosemite horsetail falls, firefall yosemite national park, firefall phenomenon

Id: 49TKS_90ips

Length: 18min 14sec (1094 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 28 2021