Yosemite Sunset Tour

13 Feb 2025

As we hurried away, a cloud rolled in, as dense as at Sequoia, letting us know that the mountain didn't want us there anymore.

As soon as we hit the main highway away from the mountain, it opened up into a beautiful day. We even spied some ravens playing near the pass.

As we went north, we kept seeing signs for a Madera Wine Trail, but it wasn't until we had passed most of them by that we finally found one of the wineries on the trail, Idle Hour Winery. We stopped in to do a tasting, and they had some really good wine, but even better food.

After an hour idle at the Idle Hour Winery, we continued onto the park as the sun started setting.

We were closing in on sunset as we entered the Wawona Tunnel into Yosemite Valley itself.

And the view on the other side was magnificent!

We checked into the Awahnee Hotel shortly after dark.

Unfortunately, the old-fashioned keys they used had some technical difficulties, but they were able to replace it with a new one with ease.

In the morning we took a walk out around the hotel and surrounding meadows. We caught Yosemite Falls making some rainbows in the morning light.

On our way into town and the visitor center, we caught a squirrel hanging out in a tree too. He's hiding right next to the trunk at the center of the frame.

Later that day, we went to check out Firefall, a phenomenon that only happens in February when the cliff-side of Horsetail Falls catches the sun just right for it to get a bright orange glow. With good weather and lots of water, it can look like a river of flame coming off the cliff-side.

We found a decent spot and set up to wait for a chance at seeing it.

It didn't appear that we'd get enough water to see the brilliant glow, and we didn't really capture any rivers of flame, but the sunset over that cliff-side was breathtaking nonetheless.

We had a few more days in Yosemite, and tons more to see. But we were settled in and ready to go adventuring!