Firefall at Horsetail Fall, Yosemite National Park, California, USA

© Nimi

An illuminated waterfall. A winter light show

Visit California’s Yosemite National Park in February and you may be shoulder-to-shoulder with photographers hoping to get a shot of Horsetail Fall in the evening. When conditions are right, rays of the setting Sun align with the falling water to set the cascade ablaze with light – a natural display called the ‘firefall’. And in a bit of added mystique, Horsetail Fall itself is an ephemeral waterfall – it flows only for a short time in the winter and early spring.