Ever since Galen Rowell captured a little sliver of light falling off El Capitan in February that resembles a fire fall in Yosemite National Park, photographers have been seeking to recapture this amazing natural phenomenon.  I you put Horsetail Falls into your favorite online search engine you will see some amazing pictures.  This year is my 5^th or 6^th attempt to capture something I can proudly put on my wall.

Five or six tries? What are you talking about you say?  Here is the set up.  For about eight days a year and for about 5-8 minutes during the eight day window, a very small stream on top of El Capitan falls down the face of that granite wall.  Due to the angle of the sun in February and October, a small sliver of orange light highlights the area of the waterfall turning it into a golden and orange ribbon of molten eye candy. The window is about eight days.  Of course there is a catch.  First, there has to be snow above the cliff, something that hasn’t happened for the past few years, to feed the waterfall.  This of course takes out the October dates because there is no water left.  Second, the sky has to be somewhat clear allowing the sun to shine on the side of El Capitan.  Just think snow has to have fallen recently enough to feed the stream and the sun has to be shinning to allow the light to illuminate the cliff face.  And of course it has to have been warm enough on top of the cliff to melt some of the snow allowing it to make the waterfall.  While clouds help add extra atmosphere to the picture the need to stay away from the sun.  Third, the total time to capture the photograph is from 5-8 minutes just before the sun drops behind the opposite side of the valley.

This takes me to my multiple tries. The first year or second year I was set up with two cameras, one film and another digital.  We were there at 3:30pm for the 5:30pm photo.  I had my spot picked out, made sure the focus was spot on and was anxiously awaiting the orange color.  I even have a few pictures of the light moving across the face of El Capitan.  Then a cloud came in front of the sun and poof! No picture.  The next year we had clouds the entire time we were there.  Last year there was no water in fall.

So here I am in an El Nino year with snow on top of the cliff, beautiful sunsets here in San Jose with orange colored clouds just before sunset and predicted snow on Thursday to add to the snow already on top of El Capitan.

This photo at the top of the page is the closest I have come to capturing the phenomenon.

Wish me luck. If you would like to read a little more about Horsetail Falls I recommend you skip over to Michael Frye’s blog at http://www.michaelfrye.com/landscape-photography-blog/ .  He helps all us wanna be’s track the viability of capturing the picture.  I expect to be with about 100 of my closest “friends”.

Remember, practice doesn’t make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect.

Dave