Spectacular El Capitan Fire Waterfall 

A rare sight!! Yosemite National Park, California, USA.

This park was gazetted as a national park in 1890. It is world famous for its rugged terrain, waterfall and century-old pine trees.  

It covers an area of 1200 sq km, and the "fire" waterfall of El Capitan, which looks like flowing lava, is one of the most spectacular of all scenery. 

The breathtaking view of the waterfall is created by the reflection of sunlight hitting the falling water at a specific angle.  

This rare sight can only be seen during a 2-week period toward the end of February.  

To photograph this rare event, photographers would often have to wait and endure years of patience in order to capture them.  

The reason is because its appearance depends on a few natural phenomenons occurring at the same time. 

First, is the formation of the waterfall. The water is formed by the melting of snow and ice at the top of the mountain.  

It melts between the months of December and January, and by the end of  February, there might not have been much snow left to melt. 

Second, is the specific angle of the sun ray hitting the falling water. The sun's position must be exactly at a particular spot in the sky.  

This occurs only in the month of February and at the short hours of dusk. It coincides with the fact that the weather in the National Park at that time of the year is often volatile and unpredictable.  It compounds the difficulty of getting these rare pictures. 

Related Site

Fire Waterfall At Yosemite