
Bridalveil Fall
It’s still winter in Yosemite Valley. There’s snow on the ground, and the trees are bare with no hint of buds. Nights are cold. The sun still takes a low path through the southern sky, and the waterfalls lie quietly against the cliffs.
But there are subtle signs of the approaching spring. Each day lasts a little longer than the previous one, and sunlight is reaching some spots for the first time in months. Bridalveil Fall, for example, now gets brushed by sunshine in the late afternoon, while in December it saw none. And the volume of water in Bridalveil and the other falls is slowly increasing. Last year the waterfalls dwindled to trickles in late July, and stayed that way through December, with the exception of a few days following a heavy October rain. But now, in February, the snowpack along the Valley’s rim is deep, and the lengthening days prompt some of that snowpack to melt and pour over the falls—not in great volume, but enough to make them real waterfalls again.
None of the major falls in Yosemite Valley completely freeze during the winter, but ice usually forms along their sides every night. During a cold snap that ice may not melt alongside shady Bridalveil for days or weeks, and impressive ice sculptures can develop at its sides and base.
Sunnier Yosemite Falls sheds its ice every day. You can often estimate how cold the previous night was by looking at the amount of ice alongside the Upper Fall in the morning: the more ice, the colder the night. This ice starts melting as soon as the sun hits it. I’ve stood out in Cook’s Meadow many times watching chunks of ice periodically break off and listening to the booms when they hit bottom. All that ice builds up into a large cone at the base of the Upper Fall, clearly visible from the Chapel Meadow. In spring—usually in April—that ice breaks apart, and Yosemite Creek and the Merced River suddenly become filled with ice. This frazil ice, as it’s called, can completely cover the ground below Lower Yosemite fall, making it seem as if a very localized storm dumped a foot or two of slushy snow there and nowhere else.

Rainbow, Upper Yosemite Fall
For photographers, Yosemite Falls presents a dilemma. In spring, when enormous quantities of water pour off its lip, the light on the falls is terrible. It’s in shade before 10 a.m. and after 4 p.m., and in between the sun is high and the light harsh. The winter light is wonderful—shortly after it rises the sun casts a beautiful warm glow on the Upper Fall. But for most of the winter only a trickle of water is visible. Now though, in February, the sunlight reaches Upper Yosemite Fall early in the day, and the increasing snowmelt brings a fair amount of water over its lip. As a bonus, you can often see a rainbow early in the morning from the eastern end of Cook’s Meadow or around Yosemite Village.
In the coming months the days will grow longer, the snow will melt faster, and before long the Valley will be filled with the roar of waterfalls. These spring cataracts are impressive and awe-inspiring, but unapproachable. Getting too close means being soaked or risking a slip and deadly fall into rapids. In winter you can get closer and examine the contours of the fall and surrounding rocks in more detail. Instead of a deafening roar, you hear musical sounds of water lapping and splashing against rocks. There’s a quiet beauty and serenity to these waterfalls in winter that you can’t experience in any other season.