~ More Alaska Wildlife & El Capitan Waterfall ~

A rare sight!! Yosemite National Park, California , USA This park was designated as a national park in 1890. It is world famous for its rugged terrain, waterfall, and century-old pine trees. It covers 1200 sq km and the "fire" waterfall of El Capitan is one of the most spectacular of all scenes. The spectacular 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 at a 2-week period towards the end of Feburary. To photograph this rare event, photographers would often have to wait and endure years of patience in order to capture them. The reason is its appearance depends on a few natural phenomena occuring at the same time, and luck. First is the formation of the waterfall - the water comes from the melting of snow and ice at the top of the mountain. It melts between the month of December and January and by the end of February there might not be much snow left to melt. Second is the specific angle of the 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. If it is a day full of clouds or something blocking the sun, you can only take pictures of your own faces on the waterfall. 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 pictures. Thank you, Buck for sharing. Buck lives in Alaska & the animal pics are taken from his office ... he has privy to an awesome part of our world.