Mastodawn

Firefall

Firefall is a relative newly discovered phenomenon discovered in Yosemite National Park not to be confused with the old firefall that was manmade.
I've been to Yosemite on 8 different occasions trying to capture this and have been skunked 7 times. This year everything finally lined up properly and this was the results I achieved.
https://pixels.com/featured/firefall-bill-gallagher.html
#Firefall #BillGallagherPhotography #HorsetailFalls Yosemite ##YosemiteValley #Nature #NaturalPhenomenon #BuyIntoArt #AYearForArt

Firefall by Bill Gallagher

Firefall Photograph by Bill Gallagher

Pixels

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Airplanista 🇺🇦Mar 30, 2025

@BGP Bill I was raised in Fresno and remember as a kiddo going to #Yosemite for the original "Firefall."

As I understood it, a crew would build a fire at the top and then I guess push it over the side. We'd wait at the bottom (not directly underneath) and wait to hear a Ranger yell "Let the Fire fall!!!!

Was pretty cool. Although given California's propensity for wildfires, I can see why they ended it.

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Karl Auerbach Mar 31, 2025

@Av8rdan @BGP My family often camped in Yosemite Valley during the 1950s when I was very small - but old enough to remember going to the meadow near Camp Currey and watching the firefall from Glacier Point.

They did indeed build a big bonfire and push it over the edge. It was impressive.

But I do not remember hearing any ranger yelling - and a ranger down where we were in the meadow would not have been heard by anyone way up at the top at Glacier Point. Radio perhaps?

BTW, I don't see what environmental damage those real fire falls caused except to leave embers and ashes on the rocks of the cliff. And unless there was wind there wasn't anything combustible for the embers to land on.

(Last time I was in the valley it was filled with fire and smoke from a large scale effort to trim the forest - clearing [and burn] a significant number of trees to return the landscape to what it was probably in John Muir's time when one could ride a horse at a gallop through the valley.)

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