Pieces may fall into place for Firefall this week

Firefall was mostly a dud last week with Horsetail Fall reduced to a trickle and pesky evening clouds blocking the spectacle, but a forecast of snow at higher elevations this week could bring perfect conditions just in time for peak viewing through Feb. 26.

On Friday evening last week, more than 2,000 people sat along prime viewing areas craning their neck skyward toward El Capitan.

A couple from Brazil traveling around California came knowing it was a dice roll, but they had seen videos on Tik Tok and Instagram and had to try.

For another couple from San Francisco, it was a weekend adventure.

For a brief moment there was a tantalizing golden hew on the granite, but the sun couldn’t quite work up the necessary illumination.

And yet, not a single boo or complaint from the crowd was heard.

Around 5:30 people began slowly moving on.

Flashlights illuminated the departing, many walking a mile and half back to their cars.

A circle of four women on a girl’s trip continued playing cards and laughing. They missed Firefall last year because they didn’t have a vehicle reservation. They said they’d be back.

Mixing among the visitors in the gloaming was Yosemite National Park Superintendent Ray McPadden, who was optimistic about the week to come.

“Even just seeing the glow on the cliff was cool for me,” said McPadden, who is hoping to experience his first Firefall.

“You’re here at Yosemite Valley, at sunset. You’re winning,” he said.

“It’s a natural phenomenon. It’s not the park service putting this on, we don’t have a bunch of rangers up there with buckets, right?” he asked, making an apparent allusion to the historic Firefall, when hot embers were thrown over Glacier Point, an environmentally dubious means of celebration that ended in 1969.

This is the first year since 2023 that no vehicle reservations were required for Firefall, which McPadden said would be handled with “boots on the ground.”

“Boots on the ground means this really isn’t rocket science,” said McPadden, mixing metaphors, but emphasizing a strategy that has been tweaked over the years.

During a briefing a couple of hours earlier, 30 park rangers got the game plan for the night ahead.

Supervising Park Ranger Kyle Smith runs the team coordinating public safety and maintaining emergency access. He suggested that people arrive around noon to get a parking place.

He reviewed the traffic setup and described how traffic will be kept from stopping or slowing down along South Side Drive and how North Side Drive would be reduced to one lane traffic and the other lane would be open to pedestrians.

Assignments were issued for traffic control, emergency response and other assignments, including protecting the Merced River.

In 2019, meadow areas and riverbeds along the Merced River were trampled on by thousands of photographers looking for the perfect shot.

February attendance in the park is only 150,000, compared to 600,000 in July, but those visitors are seeking a much smaller space.

Ranger Smith said people should consider that the same alpine light that illuminates Horsetail Fall also illuminates thousands of other locations in the park.

One of his favorite views during Firefall is not of Horsetail Fall.

It’s actually looking in the opposite direction, facing the crowd, their faces in wonder, with the light behind them reflecting off Sentinel Rock.