Firefalls viewing at Yosemite - a breathtaking experience

Our hiking group has long longed for a trip to Yosemite to see the Firefalls. For those of you not familiar with this, the Horsetail falls in Yosemite gets frozen and when the setting sun falls on this ice and mist, for a few minutes, the falls glows like lava and is called the Firefalls.  It happens over a 15-20 day window in February when most of the other park trails are closed because of ice. It is also a luck of the draw as it has to have rained the previous day and there should be no clouds in the path of the sun on the actual day. 

Many of our friends have made multiple attempts and are yet to see the firefalls.. we took our chances this year and were not disappointed.. we spent a day hiking partly up to Vernal falls till the ice made it too risky for us. Had a nice packed lunch.. then rushed to watch the display that nature put on for us! THis photo is from an iPhone 11 with some editing..

Here are five shots taken with the SLR as the sun went down.. the first one is what the frozen falls looks like before the magic begins..

These pictures don't do justice to what our eyes saw.. every pocket of ice reflects the sun like a diamond and the whole thing shimmers as the sun moves.. something that has to be seen live to experience!

There is also an iPhone photo for comparison that was taking toward the end. The iPhone automatically edits the photo.. for all I know, Apple knowing my location, is running some AI to make the falls look better.. 

and a selfie of a beaming me capturing this..

We took a lot of "Firefies"...

Will do a separate posts on our hike to Vernal falls with pictures!

This whole event lasts 4 to 12 mintues depending on when you go, if you get lucky! For us it was closer to 12 minutes and we got an amazing light show! The previous day was only 4 minute window, per the ranger we spoke to.

Advice to folks who are not pro photographers trying to get a shot.. go an hour early with some blankets and set up! It is a mile and a half walk on icy slippery roads. So expect that to take some time. By the time we got there 30 mintues before, there was no room to put a tripod. So I went behind the crowds into the bushy area and got cut up by thorns in my legs. Could have avoided that if we had been early. 

Also we were lucky that our dinner was in the car. So while a few thousand people all rushed to the parking lots and tried to drive out and gridlocked the whole place, we calmly ate our dinner and then drove out. From 5AM to 11PM, it was a day trip. It was tiring but exhilarating!

This one gets checked off the bucket list!

More in the next post..

Pedro point and a Pacifica sunset

This weekend saw yet another hike. This one turned out to me more interesting than we had planned.

There were no benches on this one but a small cut log which made for a great view point.. We could sit there for hours and enjoy the breeze!

The idea was to drive to the Devil's slide parking lot and hike to Pedro's point and get a scenic view of the bay and the sunset and come back. The one word in that previous sentence that did not work our way ? "PARKING"

It took us an hour to get there because of the traffic. It was 80 degrees in Cupertino and a nice 71 in the coast. So the entire bay area decided to go there! There was no parking. We tried four different lots around the area and after 50 minutes, we decided to start from the beach by walking along the road to a different trail head. 

Parked outside a strip mall opposite to the beach (there was no beach parking either and there were plenty of bad and irate drivers to make it dangerous to just wait in the parking lot!). That added another mile to the plan each way.. and given we had lost an hour to find parking.. we hiked like never before. 

Amazing views from all sides!

took this picture as we were running down.. 

Things were going great till we went to the top of the view point and realized we were very late. So we decided to take a "private trail" that showed up on Alltrails map that would go directly from the top to Devils slide. This thing turned out to be not much of a trail and was downright dangerous. We were slipping and almost fell. So we decided to climb back up, double up our speed to make it to Devils slide. 

We did get 15 minutes to watch the sun and drink chai before racing back!

It was a pretty steep hike right at the start but the views made up for it. We barely made it to Devils slide as the sun was setting. So we rushed back to the parking (it was all downhill but we had to be careful) and caught the post sunset hues in the beach before driving back!

On a normal day when we would have had an extra hour and parked at the right place, this would have been easy and pleasant. Think we should revisit it on a working day by taking leave just to get parking! 

The sunset experience was refreshing as usual.. 

Strongly recommend this (minus the private trail) on a non busy day!

Russian Ridge and Borel Hill sunset

We changed hiking plans for this week to the afternoon.. as it was expected to be a great sunset! 

The hike to Borel hill on a roundabout route through Russian ridge on the ridge trail is a little over 7 miles. It is a moderate hike compared to our other recent hikes! 

Saw the sunset from the Borel hill summit and the skies were just amazing!

Then we made a race to the parking lot. Couldn't feel our fingers on the way down.. I couldn't even click photos on the iPhone as my fingers were numb with the wind. Made it back down just before they close the park gates. 

Here are some photos and panos..

There were no park benches at this summit.. so we used the sign post for our "viewing our future" photo.

We celebrated the summit with some chai !! This hiking group rocks !! 

You get the most amazing views of the bay area from this point! You can also see Black mountain right alongside.. but the view from this point is better in my opinion!

the way up was a interesting.. there was not much shade for the most part.. the sun was on our head the entire time.. we picked a less sunny day for this hike which ended up a good move!

A picture that is typical of the group.. me trailing the rest of the pack by 500 feet or so.. 

Strongly recommend this for an afternoon to evening hike! 

There is another vista point that is not part of this loop at Mindego hill trail.. we skipped that today as there was not enough time.. that will be explored another day.. we did cover the Ancient oaks trail and Charquin trails today.

An evening well spent!

Mission peak on a cloudy day

It was announced to me late last evening that we will be going to Mission peak in the morning.

So... I went!

The yoga had to be pushed to evening and my "live" singing plan took a nose dive. However, was glad I went because it was really beautiful outside! Mission peak seemed very different. It was alive! There was water in marshy ponds! Ducks and cows and baby baby cutie calf walking around.. songbirds everywhere! The skies were putting on a show and given we started hiking before 7AM, the diffuse sunlight made for great pictures!

Was treated to some nice chai, once we reached the top! That was the other highlight of the hike!

We also took a few detours today to go some other trails on the way that we never explored before. We were treated to some amazing views .. and I got the park bench photos again.. 

Timing is everything.. going forward, going to hike this peak in late Jan, right after it rains.. 

Felt on top of the world this morning.. (and again this evening after doing a Bikram Yoga class! The rest of the group didn't have to do that.. so it was a challenge for me.. but I am actually feeling great now after all that exercise in one day)

and for some nature pics and panos..

the rolling fog made the pictures even more interesting..

the same water we passed on the way in.. but on the way out.. there were cows..and glorious clouds!

The cows made it interesting today as well..

A day well spent...

Now family willing... some mic time! 

Black Mountain... for real!

Last week, San showed me the trailer for Black Mountain by going through a shorter hike from a higher starting point in Montebello open space preserve. 

This week the hiking group went for the real deal. Start at PG&E and go through Quarry trail to Black Mountain. This is one of the hardest local same day hikes. 

We hiked 14 miles and climbed 3400 feet in 5 hours 45 minutes including a 15 minute photo break at the summit and two five minute stops at the PG&E as we passed it on the way up and down!

This was the first time for me in this group! (San has done this twice already). There was a doubt on our ability to do this in reasonable time.  Even if we were going to take it one foot at a time, the plan was to do this hike. Even though we were tired, the folks were actually happy enough to jump for joy when we got back down! They were all happy for me as I am the slowest in the group. Everytime I see something interesting, the camera comes out and that slows me down further!

Our hiking group has now covered all the top 10 difficult one day hikes in bay area and we are glad we started this activity during COVID! (each of these has blog posts and pictures)

There was no fancy clouds or sunset colors like the other evening, but clear visibility. We could see the sun shine off the Salesforce tower in SFO and spot every landmark from our own Apple spaceship to the SFO skyline.. 

Here are some more pictures!

some panos

There are folks who bike here from the Montebello side!

Our ace photographer friend joined us for this hike and we wanted to get another park bench shot.. this goes in our collection..the best pictures on this bench are when the sun is not yet up! we missed that on the way up.. 

After coming back and getting a 90 minute nap, did a hot yoga class! Still hydrating to get back to normal this morning! 

and a great shot from Raja.. 

Will announce Raja's photo book on the Ranco San Antonio Preserve, once he gets to it!!

Glad we did this hike! The last two miles up was really difficult! Now that we have gone there once, next time should be easier!