I was out last night guiding some folks around Yosemite Valley. They wanted to finish their session at a place to photograph Horsetail Fall. Although not in the prime light window of February 16 – 23, if there’s sunlight and enough water, the fall can be pretty amazing in the days preceding the optimum window.
As seen from my photo above, there was simply not enough water in Horsetail Falls to put on a show last night. In fact, I’ll say there was no water in the fall. You can click on the image above to see the larger version. The light colored rock in the right edge of the light is Horsetail Fall. However, Horsetail is nothing more than a wet streak on the east face of El Capitan.
The NOAA seven day forecast doesn’t look favorable for Horsetail Fall. Here’s the data through February 19, most of the optimal window for the fall:
There is no precipitation in site. Visual observation of snow on the top of El Capitan gives me some hope though. Melting snow is typically what feeds water into Horsetail Fall. There is still snow on top of El Capitan. Notice in the forecast that we will see temperatures rising to almost 60 degrees this weekend. The warmer temperature could melt enough snow to revive the fall in the optimum window. It’s really hard to know at this point until this weekend.
Let’s hope for increased water this weekend and a beautiful orange to red fall to fall down the east face of El Capitan!