Life and Work in Yosemite - A User’s Guide to Housing, Work, and “The Experience”

Sometime in January of 2016, I stood in my parents’ kitchen, haltingly telling my mom that I wanted to apply to work in Yosemite National Park. I stated that I just didn’t want her, or my dad, to be disappointed in me; though I didn’t voice it, that was the only thing holding me back. My mom assured me they wouldn’t be, and I felt several pounds lighter.

That night and the next day I put in a slew of applications and on March 12th I received a call from a Yosemite National Park number. The person on the other end of the line conducted an interview right then over the phone, and said they’d be in contact. Days wore on, and I panicked. I put in more applications. I knew I didn’t want to work a food service job, but I put in for anything and everything else I believed I qualified for. Finally, on March 26th, I received a follow-up call, and two days later I had an official offer letter in my email.

On April 11, 2016, I drove into Yosemite, signed my final paperwork, received my ID and housing key, and never looked back.

——

I remember, in those two weeks between the offer letter and driving into Yosemite Valley for the job, wondering what it was going to be like. I knew early on that housing would be provided, but details either weren’t provided or didn’t stick. I searched through the internet and found a blog post from an ex-employee, a man who had retired from the regular world’s workforce and only stayed in Yosemite for a week. The post gave a brief detail of the housing situation—a roommate, communal kitchens and bathrooms. I convinced myself I could make that work. I wanted so badly to be in Yosemite. (Please note, that blog post is about someone’s experience over two decades ago—some things are different, some are the same. My post is more current, and much more detailed than his!)

My onboarding paperwork gave a few more breadcrumbs—bring a box to be labeled for your food for the communal kitchen. Bring all your own bedding. Quiet hours, rules about pets, smoking, etc.

I remember wishing there was a comprehensive guide for the new hire about actually living in the Park. I had my BA in Creative Writing, so perhaps I could do it when I got there? I had every intention but got swept up in the life and that idea was soon forgotten.

But now, seven years later, here I am. This is what I can tell you about living and working in Yosemite.

(Please note: some of my information about working for most of the Park entities is based purely on observation or by speaking with the employees of those entities, but only casually, not in an interview format.)

(Please also note that there are three sections and a conclusion: “The Job”, “The Housing”, and “The Experience”, and “Final Thoughts”. Feel free to skip to the section you want to find out information about.)

THE JOB

In Yosemite National Park, there is a huge variety of jobs. Under the NPS employment umbrella are things such as Interpretive Ranger, Wilderness/Backcountry Ranger, Entrance Gate Rangers, Law Enforcement Rangers, Sanitation Rangers, and administration, to name a few. NPS owns almost all the buildings within the borders of Yosemite National Park, but they don’t run the businesses or most of the services. They contract that happy business out to concessionaires. An authorized concessionaire is the entity that conducts the business for lodging, food, retail, and related services. As of writing this post (April 2023), the two concessionaires are: Yosemite Hospitality (Aramark), which runs the majority of the lodging, food, retail, and other guest services; and The Ansel Adams Gallery, which of course is responsible for the Gallery and its services. There are AirBnBs in the privately-owned communities of Foresta, Wawona, and Yosemite West. Foresta and Wawona were grandfathered in, and Yosemite West technically exists outside of the Park borders, although you have to drive into the Park to access it. Because of the exceptions for these communities, they are not controlled by NPS business affairs, only have to comply with federal regulations regarding quiet hours, food storage, and the like. Foresta and Yosemite West don’t have any businesses, and may use local labor to clean their AirBnBs. Wawona has an entity called the Redwoods in Yosemite who oversees many private cabin rentals and cleaning, as well as a small store and an events building. More information about Yosemite’s concessions management can be found here. There is also the Yosemite Conservancy, which is a sort of ambiguous entity that is neither NPS nor concessionaire, and is a non-profit organization that provides some guest services like interpretive programs, wilderness permit assistance, information booths, and a couple of small shops in the Park.

I want to be clear right away—no matter which entity you are employed by, you are working for the tourists. Without the tourists, you have no job*. And you are discouraged from calling them tourists. They are “guests” or “visitors”.

The majority of positions are what we call guest-facing. You have to put on a customer service face, use your customer service voice, and give directions, answer questions, address complaints, and provide general information. Some of these positions are more guest-intensive than others. The free shuttle drivers and entrance station Rangers have my utmost respect—they have the most guest-intensive positions in the Park. And guests can be just…just awful. And listen, I get it. It’s hot, you’re tired, you’ve waited in line for three hours, your child is crying because they’re hot, and tired, and hungry, and your headache is mounting, and your SO is telling you to calm down and it’s not helping. But that’s not an excuse to hurl verbal and sometimes physical abuse at these workers. They don’t have any control over the circumstances that led to your bad mood. The entrance station Rangers and shuttle drivers definitely get an unfair proportion of the visitors’ poorest behavior.

Different locations in the Park have different levels of visitation. One of the easiest factoids to remember is that 95% of the visitation to Yosemite only visits 5% of the Park: Yosemite Valley. I won’t break it down by every department, let alone every position, but by looking at the location you’re applying to, you’ll get an idea for what to expect in terms of volume. Based on my experience and observations during my life here, the positions/work units that will see the highest amount of volume (behind the entrance station Rangers and the free shuttle drivers) are:

Curry Village’s front desk, which sees a large amount of guests looking for the campgrounds and the Mirror Lake and Mist trails, as well as checking in their lodging guests and conducting bike and raft rentals. Bear in mind that the Mist Trail is one of the most heavily used trails in the National Park system, and Yosemite was the 8th most visited National Park in 2022. That’s an immense proportion of the visitors to Yosemite going on the same trail, passing through Curry Village to get to it.

Curry Village’s food services.

Curry Village’s housekeeping, which I note not because of the amount of guests interacted with, but the sheer volume of units the department is responsible for. Nearly 400 units exist on the Curry Village property, and they can contain anywhere from one to four beds.

The Village Store in Yosemite Village, which sees the majority of the Park’s retail purchases; guests do treat it as a visitor’s center and ask for information and directions, although NPS is co-opting the empty space next to the store for a Welcome Center (a semi-visitor’s center location), which will hopefully curb that pressure on those employees.

The Visitor’s Center in Yosemite Village, which contains the Conservancy bookstore. The Ansel Adams Gallery gets spillover visitation from the Visitor’s Center.

The Yosemite Valley Lodge front desk, which deals with check-ins, visitors for Yosemite Falls, and tours.

and

The Lodge’s food services.

Outside of the Valley, the Mariposa Grove outside of Wawona has high visitation, and the Conservancy operates a small shop there.

This is not to say that the other jobs in the Park are easy or slow. Housekeeping, no matter which property it’s for, is tough physical labor. Tuolumne Meadows sees a sizeable amount of work when it’s open and prime hiking season, though while the campground is closed for reworking it’s slower than it would normally be. In the crunch of summer, or weekends, or holidays, or the Firefall window in February, traffic control rangers have their hands full managing illegal parking and slow traffic, or people who are going the wrong way down one-way streets or onto roads they’re not allowed on. Bear patrol rangers are responsible for making sure people keep their distance from the bears and that cars get moving again. The High Sierra Camps are remote and, while their visitation is small, their workers have to hike to get out and back in from their weekends, and sacrifice normal luxuries like eggs and whisky. Food and beverage jobs, regardless where they are, are gonna be a crunch during lunch and dinner hours, regardless whether you’re a server or a cook. Camp hosts have to deal with the squabbles of inconsiderate neighbors, someone wanting this site instead of their site, someone in someone else’s site, fire regulations not being followed, etc.

You’re coming to work in a tourist destination, is all I’m saying. Do I get tired of visitors? Heck yes. The inconsiderate illegal parking, the trash, the crowds, the people in the delicate meadows, the feeding of wildlife, the attitude I get when it’s 4 pm on a Saturday and someone walks into my store, angrily asking what’s up with the traffic and when can we expect it to clear, the incredulity that there’s so many people in the Valley and is something going on? No? This is just what a summer day is? …yeah, the visitors can be a pain. They can be a drag. They can be exhausting. The same four questions, on repeat, for eight hours straight, can wear you down. The complaints about how far a tent cabin is from a parked car. The anger about the lack of parking. The rage about the buses being full and three of them now have passed you by because there was no space. The entitlement to a permit or campsite that they didn’t book beforehand but they’re here now and they should be able to get a campsite, and it’s all the government’s fault or some bs. The accusations that you’re just going to let them get trapped and killed in a wildfire instead of informing them when to evacuate (still one of the most ridiculous accusations I’ve had thrown at me). It will get to anyone. We all reach a point where we need to blow off steam. That’s what friends are for, and Yosemite can provide an escape. If you look between the lines of the map, you can ditch the visitors with ease, and let the sunshine and the sound of water, or the breeze in the trees, or the birds in the air, you can let it all eke away your frustrations and remind you why you’re in Yosemite.

Even aside from the visitors, there can be challenges. The jobs are not usually glamorous—it’s hospitality. The bulk of the jobs are housekeeping, or retail, or food service. You may disagree with how your company is handling things. The communication issues are rampant, no matter which entity you work for. In your job you might have a poor mix of coworkers, or you may not like your manager, or you may not like the actual work you’re performing. And everyone has their limit. I left one of my positions because a new manager came in and turned a very well-functioning, happy department on its head and caused massive short-staffing and overworking issues. The fortunate thing, at least about working for the main concessionaire, is that you can move between positions, departments, whole properties, with relative ease.

On the plus side, almost all positions are full-time at 40 hours a week, and hours are only cut when business slows down in shoulder seasons. If working lodging or food services in Curry Village, there’s a 2-3 week period each year after Thanksgiving where there will be no work for you; to fill this in, you can pick up hours at other properties, usually by lending a hand to the housekeeping departments. After the New Year, the schedule slims down to mid-day Friday through mid-day Sunday, so hours are scarce. If you want to have your best shot at working full-time through the winter, especially in your first year, you’ll want to look at transferring to another property entirely. Curry Village retail is the exception, and they are open every day of the year (with exceptions for extenuating circumstances, like Park closures or disasters).

The other upside is that the jobs are relatively mindless. Be good at basic math, have an agreeable disposition, put in a small amount of effort, and you can just coast. You’ll gain knowledge as you work, so helping guests becomes a no-brainer most of the time. You don’t need a degree to work most of the jobs in Yosemite, and there’s lots of opportunity in the lower levels to move up and improve, if you’re so inclined.

So if you’re gonna come work in Yosemite, just recognize that you’ll be dealing with a lot of visitors (4+mil per year, and no reservation system in 2023) whether you’re on the clock or not, and that without those visitors, you wouldn’t have the opportunity to work and live in Yosemite*. But the jobs mostly aren’t that bad, and it doesn’t take a lot to do well in most positions. And oftentimes, you’re not here for the job. The job is a means to an end, and the visitors are the reason for your job. Accept it with grace. It’s gonna be worth it if you can just accept it.

*Very few exceptions exist, and are highly competitive and often require strict qualifications.

THE HOUSING

To live in Yosemite, you have to work in Yosemite**. On the other side of that coin, having a job in Yosemite doesn’t always guarantee you housing!

Housing is dispersed all across Yosemite Valley and in the areas of the Park where services are offered. They do a fabulous job of fading into the background; most visitors don’t even notice the housing areas, although a fair amount of the visitors who get lost find themselves accidentally stumbling through residential neighborhoods. In the Valley, there’s several housing areas in Yosemite Village; three-four housing areas in the eastern end of the valley, depending on the season and need for housing; and a small amount of housing by the Lodge.

Let’s revisit who you can work for in Yosemite for a moment. The main three entities are NPS, the Yosemite Conservancy, and the main concessionaire, Yosemite Hospitality (Aramark). The Ansel Adams Gallery is a small organization with a mixture of housing in Yosemite Village and in El Portal. These consist of split houses, and that’s pretty much all I know about that. There’s also a program called NatureBridge which provides schoolkids opportunities to visit and learn about wilderness areas, so they have teachers in the Park, but I am very unfamiliar with how they function and don’t know about their housing. I know there’s not many of them. I’m also unfamiliar with the Redwoods in Yosemite, in Wawona. Their website states that they offer a small amount of housing and an employee shuttle from the town of Oakhurst, about a half-hour’s drive away.

As the Yosemite Conservancy begins to expand their operations and look to hire more, they are searching for places to snag housing. I believe they have obtained a couple of spots in Foresta and Mariposa, but on the whole, Yosemite Conservancy doesn’t have housing to offer.

NPS has some housing, but the majority of it is in El Portal, just outside the Park. There is some within the Park, and most of it is likely reserved for employees with high-ranking positions and/or a lot of seniority. And the suckiest thing about NPS housing is that, if you’re a seasonal hire, you get housing—but if you’re a permanent worker but low on seniority or in a low position, you don’t. Make it make sense, NPS.

Employees of the Yosemite Conservancy or NPS who aren’t provided with housing have to hunt for rental openings in gateway communities. Midpines, El Portal, and Foresta are typically where a lot of these workers find housing, because the owners usually only rent or sell to people who work in the Park. (If I recall, there’s some sort of deal about that with NPS for El Portal and maybe Foresta; otherwise a bunch of rich people would snap up all the El Portal properties and no employees could afford to live within an hour of the Park.)

With these entities, you get what I’ll call “adult housing”, if you’re provided with housing. It may be cozy (small), it may be rustic (limited electricity capacity, wood-burning stoves for winter heat), but it’s definitely some sort of a respectable living situation, and frequently independent.

So we come to Yosemite Hospitality, which largely has what I’ll call “college housing”. Privacy is extremely limited. Read that again—privacy is extremely limited.

Brand new hires for Yosemite Hospitality (“YH”) can expect to be placed into a tent cabin. Look up Curry Village tent cabins on your search engine of choice, and that’s pretty much what you get. White canvas on a green-painted wooden platform; a propane heater; two bear boxes per unit; a small twin-size metal bedframe and mattress per person; and a wooden shelving unit per person. You will have at least one but up to three roommates, and that is non-negotiable. I’ve heard too many schemes about bribing the housing director, or finding a way to play the system, to not have a roommate and it never pans out. You will get a roommate. Come to terms with that fact before you get to Yosemite. This is what I mean by “privacy is extremely limited”.

If you are placed in a tent cabin with only one roommate, your unit will have a 10’x10’ floor. Meaning the amount of space you pay for is 10’x5’. You’ll have a similar amount of “your space” in a 4-person tent cabin. There are no walls to separate “your space” from your roommates, and if you want one, you’ll have to get creative. I’ve seen configurations where the shelving units were placed side-by-side in the middle of a unit to create a pseudo-wall; tapestries and folding walls would also possibly afford you a small amount of privacy. Your best bet for privacy, though, is timing—learn your roommate’s schedule and know when you’ll have the unit to yourself. There is one two-port outlet (might be two in the larger tent cabins), and it can’t take a lot. Choose wisely what you wish to use it for, and remember you have to share it with another person. Surge protectors are your friend. I used a two-port and two-usb-port plug extender in mine and was able to run a set of small speakers, a string of lights, a small usb-plug fan, and my phone charging cable from it, while my roommate had an extender to charge her phone and no other frills. We had a bare lightbulb sticking down from the top beam of the roof, and a metal bar each to hang some clothes from.

The heater was pretty good, and doesn’t get turned off for the summer like the ones in guest tents in Curry; meaning if there’s a cold snap in June, you can still be toasty warm. On the other hand, your “windows” are canvas-flap-covered screens, and the airflow is not great—hence why I had my little usb-plug fan. The tents get stuffy in the heat of August, you probably shouldn’t spend much time in them if you can help it. The bed wasn’t the most comfortable but it did its job; you need to provide your own sheets, blankets, and pillow. There’s enough space under the bed to make some storage—probably 1.5-2’ between the frame and floor. You can choose to bring in your own mattress and bedframe, if you prefer.

Do NOT store food in your tent cabin! I had raccoons break into mine in the middle of the night because I forgot to take something out once. Bears would have precisely no problems ripping the canvas of your tent cabin and are not considerate about your belongings when rummaging for the delectable scents they detect. Mice are smart and have sharp teeth. Though not a threat to your food, bats like to roost in between the roof and ceiling canvases. Your unit comes with bear boxes, they’re easy to use so use them.

You will be using communal bathrooms and kitchens. The kitchens have 2-4 4-burner stoves and usually 2 fridges and 1 freezer. Get yourself a lockable container and label it with your name and unit number. Theft happens. And check the kitchen frequently. The fridges and freezers have broken down, and if you’re not there quick to scoop up your belongings and stash them elsewhere, they will be disposed of. I lost about $50 of groceries in a new locked toolbox due to a freezer breaking down, and I was not notified or given the opportunity to retrieve my belongings, and when I brought this up to the housing director and asked for compensation, I was essentially laughed out of the office.

The communal bathrooms have stall showers with double curtains for changing privacy, and I believe 3+ toilets (it’s been a while since I had to use those).

The communal kitchens and bathrooms are cleaned every day by housing employees. Do not leave any personal belongings in either building—any dishes left in the kitchen will be held by housing for a short period, and then thrown away, and anything in the bathroom will be thrown away.

Communal laundry facilities are also provided, and dumpsters for personal trash disposal (if you keep a small wastebasket in your unit) are close by.

Cell service is spotty but does come through decently at night when the crowds are gone and fewer people are gumming up the bandwidth. You can’t install wifi in the tent cabins, but if you’re near a Wob—which I'll get to in a moment—that has wifi installed, you may be able to pay to hop onto theirs. I’ve seen people bring TVs into tent cabins to play games, so that’s a thing too.

So you have heat, a roof, a bed, storage, kitchen and bathroom cleaning, and most utilities, and you pay a grand total of…$17 and change each week, auto-deducted from your paycheck. If we do some quick and dirty math, round up to $18 because they’re bound to increase rent at some point, for a 5’x10’ patch of heaven on earth with cleaning service you’re paying $936 in rent each year.

Just…just soak in that for a moment. Less than $1k per year for a place to live. It’s not glamorous, it’s not private, but it’s warm inside, and it’s got a bed, and you have access to the necessities. What? Where else does that happen? And it’s in the middle of YOSEMITE VALLEY?

If you’re unfortunate enough to still be in a tent cabin when winter arrives, make sure you have a lighter on you. Your door lock will freeze over and you’ll need to heat out the keyhole to unlock it. (Or don’t lock your tent, but don’t be surprised if you find a drunk neighbor passed out on the floor, or a critter huddling in your clothes for warmth).

The down sides, of course, are lack of room and lack of privacy. I absolutely heard multiple occurrences of sex in my time in the tent cabin, and my neighborhood was the party neighborhood, so I needed to wear headphones to bed to fall asleep (the one exception was the Perseid Meteor Shower week, that was the quietest week I ever had in the tent cabins at night). And I get it—a lot of the people who come to work in Yosemite in the summer are kids out of high school looking for a cool adventure and some money, or college kids on break looking for the same. It’s probably their first time away from their parents, and they want to live it up. And it’s fun to get swept up in it, just this big group of people who want to live and have a good time in a beautiful place, and you make such fast friends, and it’s just so wild.

If you find you aren’t getting along with your roommate, you can ask to be changed to another unit. Depending on availability, it may be a long wait. Having an opposite schedule from your roommate could help with conflicts, but it’s down to you or your roommate to request your schedule changes.

The next step up from a tent cabin is a Wob—a cabin without bathroom. It’s basically the same thing as a tent cabin—same 10’x10’ footprint and same roommate requirement, and same communal kitchen, bathroom, and laundry—but with hard walls, so storing toiletries and food inside is suddenly feasible. You have another electrical outlet, and windows you can put a small a/c unit in. And an actual doorknob. If you’re fortunate in your timing, there could be space in a Wob when you arrive in Yosemite—it doesn’t hurt to ask when checking in. These are a tiny bit more to rent than a tent cabin—I believe they’re just shy of $20 a week.

The longer you’re in Yosemite, the better housing you can get, but be prepared for a long wait there too. It’s also dependent on your position. The lowest positions—housekeeper, server, the like—take longer to move up. Higher positions—things like cook or guide, which require special knowledge/skills—can move up in housing status faster.

Tent cabins and wobs make up the majority of YH’s housing offerings. The next step up from a Wob is essentially a college dorm room; more floor space, and a closet! And indoor bathrooms and kitchen access (though still communal). Still gotta have a roommate, though, and still not shaking that college vibe; and rent goes up to almost $22/week. And then, glory of all glories, you come to a junction—you qualify for a solo room, or a studio apartment. These offerings are limited in quantity, hence why you need to be so high in position and/or seniority for them. You typically need close to ten years for a solo room, and you still have communal bathrooms and kitchens but by gum, you have your own space. (Confession time—I don’t know the rental cost of the solo rooms.) The apartments are spacious but require a roommate still, but you have a private bathroom (and many people construct their own pseudo-kitchenette within, though there is a communal kitchen still with ovens, stoves, fridges, and freezers). The apartments are very competitive and it seems to require a strange sort of luck to get into them; if you go by the rules on paper, it takes about a decade and a mid-level position to get into one. My dorm room building was literally falling apart around me when I got into the apartments, and I’m convinced I would have been in the dorms for another couple of years at least if it hadn’t been for that situation. Studio apartments cost just under $40/week, and the downside is that you need to supply your own toilet paper and cleaning services.

There are, of course, alternative ways to move up, but they’re harder. You can have someone else request you in as a roommate. So if you’re in a tent cabin, and someone in a dorm room needs a roommate, and you seem to get along well with them, that person can request for housing to move you to their unit. That can go for any combination—tent to studio, dorm to wob, wob to studio, if you want to get into a specific type of unit because you like the vibe, someone can request you in. And the good news is, except for the studios, once you’re in the unit, you don’t have to leave if the person who requested you moves out. With the studios, though, the person who was awarded the room has to reside in the room if you’re requested in before you qualify. If they move, you get removed.

Then, of course, the best way to play the game is to shack up with someone. Condensing two twin beds into one double or even queen bed frees up a surprising amount of floor space, and then it doesn’t quite so much feel like a roommate. I met my husband here and it does not feel like I have a roommate at all. Well, most times. When the dishes don’t end up where they belong, it kinda feels like a roommate haha.

Management has “adult housing”, which can range from a studio apartment at the lowest level (typically supervisors) to a house on the meadow (typically department or property heads). I know that last one sounds glamorous, but there’s rampant plumbing problems over there—those houses are getting very old, and it takes an act of Congress to be able to do much about it. There are more modern houses tucked back behind Yosemite Village by the courthouse, and these are a mixture of NPS, the school’s teachers, and some high-up concessionaire execs.

Most people decorate their tent cabins with tapestries and prayer flags. As you get into hard-sided units, decorations lean more towards the framed sort, though tapestries and prayer flags can be found in all levels of housing. Exterior decorations need to be conservative and minimal, but there’s still some play for customization if you’re sly and subtle about it.

Do your best to not get on the housing director’s bad side. That’s all I’ll say about that.

Yosemite’s housing isn’t glamorous; at practically every level, there’s a compromise you have to make. You must be adaptable. Most units necessitate minimalism, but if you’re creative, it’s not difficult to maximize your space. Set your expectations, and realize that everyone else around you is in the same boat, so just be nice to each other and have a good time. The community as a whole is a bunch of caring, carefree, nature-loving hippies who are in Yosemite because it’s Yosemite, and that’s all they need.

**Very, very few exceptions, including a very limited amount of grandfathered-in private property and being the spouse or child of a high-ranking position.

THE EXPERIENCE

So now you know what kind of job you can get, and what kind of housing you can expect to go along with it. What is living in Yosemite like?

Look, living in Yosemite is a dream. A freaking dream. I can put on my slippers and walk five minutes down the bike path in my robe with a cup of hot cocoa in my hands and just watch the day break over Half Dome, and I can do that any time I want. I could wax poetic for paragraphs and paragraphs about the things I’ve seen and the things I’ve done in Yosemite and all the magic I’ve experienced here. And I have, over several social media posts of my photography. And those aren’t exaggerated. I have never regretted moving to Yosemite. I have seen and done so many amazing things here. It is, truly, a dream.

And at the same time, living in Yosemite comes with struggles. What is perfection if you don’t have flaws to throw it into sharp contrast, so you can appreciate it?

Some things many people take for granted are an exception in places like Yosemite. Take, for example, going to the movies. Ah the new Marvel movie is gonna be out tomorrow, wanna go see it? Not quite so easy for us—the closest movie theatre is an hour and a half’s drive away. Groceries? Yeah, we have the Village Store, with the tourism markup in prices and limited selection; if we want a larger selection and reasonable prices, the closest larger grocery stores are an hour-plus drive away. Wanna go to a mall for some retail therapy? Gonna be a two-and-a-half hour drive out to get to that. Most good restaurants are quite a haul out there too. Need to get your car serviced? That’s an hour-plus drive away. Dentist? Hour+. Hospital? Hour+. There is a medical clinic in the Valley which can perform normal checkups, assess injuries, and provide some emergency care, but if you need a specialist, you’ll be referred to somebody in town an hour or more away. Need to pick up your prescriptions? Hour+. Eye doctor? Two-plus hours. Hairdo? Hour+. Live sports event? Two-plus hours. We can’t just up and go do almost anything that’s taken as a regular thing for most of the modern world—it must be planned in advance, and driving time needs to be taken into account. Anything it takes an hour to get to takes two hours of driving time. Not to mention working around the lines at the entrance station, if you’re unfortunate enough to be returning when everyone else is trying to get in.

Going out to eat is a rare treat, only because after a few months of the selection of the Valley you’re pretty turned off to the offerings here. There’s only so many times you can go to Base Camp before it’s stale; only so much Curry pizza you can take.

Drive times are something that can be a bit of a shock, but if you can adapt to it, it doesn’t faze you. And I guess that’s my theme here, the one thing I want to drive home—be adaptable. Play it smart. Visitors start showing up en masse at 9 am? Get on the trail at 7:30. Traffic to get in gets bad at 10? Aim to be in the gate at 8. Traffic to exit comes to a standstill at 4? Don’t drive to work, get a bike or walk it—it’s only a mile and a half at most (except for those that live outside the Valley—get a drink at the bar after your shift and leave at 7).

If you have your own car, you’ll need to provide a copy of registration to HR, who will then issue you a windshield sticker which allows you free passage into and out of the Park. When your sticker expires, you’ll need to get a new one from HR, and sometimes they require you to return your previous sticker (why? I have no idea). If you don’t have your own car, there are some public transportation options to get you into town for groceries or appointments, but their schedule leaves a little to be desired. Bikes are a great way to get around to Valley destinations, but be aware there is no mountain biking in the Park—wheels on the pavement only, and prohibited on the Mist and Lower Fall trails.

You aren’t legally allowed to sleep in your vans, schoolies, trailers, etc. If you have a trailer or RV, the housing director will make you put it in storage outside of the Park. You will be responsible for locating and paying for a storage location.

Cell service is spotty, but it’s there. Verizon has the towers, and AT&T piggybacks on the signal, so those two services have the strongest signal, and the signal is the strongest in Yosemite Village. Wifi is available, either for free at the employee gym or by purchasing your own service if you’re not in a tent cabin; however the only internet service offered is AT&T, so you just gotta suck it up if you want non-cellular access to the internet. And if you don’t want either? Turn off your phone and don’t get or seek out the internet. There are definitely people here who aren’t glued to their phone or other screens.

The visitors are everywhere. We swear they can sense we’re employees even when we’re out of uniform, and I don’t know how they do it—is it because I’m not staggering around slack-jawed at the awesomeness of the cliffs? Does my face give the impression that I just know? Do I give off the impression that I am a Yosemite professional? None of these questions are meant as a guilt-trip and in the end, it’s flattering, but dang it, if I’m not in uniform, I don’t want to answer your questions. But I wouldn’t have a job if visitors weren’t here, and it’s ridiculous of me to expect visitors not to be here. So I answer the questions and remind myself to take a lesser-travelled path next time. Poor planning on my part doesn’t mean I can blame the visitors. I know where to find the seclusion between the lines on the maps, and if I want to avoid visitors and other people, that’s where I should go—that’s entirely within my own power. I need to be adaptable, that’s all. And as much as I’ve been trying to impress on you to be patient because they can wear you down, there’s actually a lot of really cool visitors that come through. Some are genuinely interested in what our life is like out here; some want to geek out about the Park with you. You can learn a lot from visitors that have been coming here every year since they were born, and if you can help them out, a lot of them are super grateful and express such in several different ways. Try not to let poorly behaved visitors cloud your perception, because that happens easily. Treasure the great interactions.

You get some friends and family perks! For any Park employee, if you have friends or family coming in to visit, they can inform the entrance station Ranger that they’re here to see an employee. The Ranger will issue them a slip of paper for you to fill out and your visitor to return upon exiting. For main concessionaire employees, if your visitor has a lodging reservation, you’re able to ask for a discount for their stay. This will depend on the manager’s mood and the availability during their visit, but normally there’s no issue with it.

The employees have an employee-only gym. Guests who stumble upon it are usually looking for the Curry front office to check in, and are directed there; but once in a while a guest strolls in, believing that they can use it, and are kicked out by the staff (which confuses me to no end, don’t you have to check in for any other gym? Who just strolls into a gym they’re not a member of without signing, like, a waiver or something?). It’s only for employees—the only time an exception has been made is when President Obama visited in 2016, and they let him have exclusive access, because, well, he was the President. That was a weird time. Anyway, the gym is staffed by YH, but it’s technically open to any Park employee, be they Naturebridge, NPS, Gallery, etc. It’s small, and can get very busy, but has the essentials—stairmaster, treadmill, row machine, squat rack, bench press, dumbbells, kettlebells, etc. It also has a yoga room. Sometimes there are group yoga sessions.

The staff that run the gym also coordinate recreational activities for the employees. Trips to town for groceries or activities like the climbing gym in Fresno, group hikes, group trips to see local natural phenomena like the Firefall or Moonbows. There used to be things like movie nights and trivia nights, casino nights and employee barbecues, but those have been lacking lately. It sounds like the people in charge are trying to get those going again—fingers crossed. They were a great way to get our community closer together and boost morale.

You’re never far from coworkers and management. I lived just one building over from my supervisor and manager a couple of years ago. You live by the people you work with, and that can be a good thing and a bad thing. The concessionaire company frowns on “fraternization” between management and hourly employees, but honestly, the management pool is so small, it’s gotta be lonely up at the top. Don’t be afraid to be friends, just be smart.

You’ll learn about hidden areas only locals and a tiny percentage of visitors know about. Don’t tell guests where to find them. There are not official trails to those places, and you do not want to be responsible if something goes wrong—also, by keeping them quiet, you preserve the solitude they offer to those in the know.

Main concessionaire hourly employees are required to join the local Union. From my personal perspective, the union is largely useless (forever salty about their poor contract negotiations regarding pay in 2022), but it makes it really hard to fire the union members. Dues are taken out of your paycheck just like rent, something like $14 a week.

Make friends. It’s easy—there’s a ton of us here. Party a little bit! (But be careful, LE rangers absolutely will happily bust you past quiet hours or with illegal substances.) There’s no open container laws in the National Park, just no glass at the river and no drinking on bridges (on the flip side of this, marijuana is not legal on a federal level and is therefore illegal in Yosemite, even though it is legal in California. Does that stop people from smoking it? No. But if caught, you’ll be pressed with federal charges, and risk losing your housing and job). Grab a can of your favourite IPA and wander down to the meadow for some stargazing. Don’t keep yourself holed up in your unit. At the same time, be careful, because while this place is amazingly safe in a social sense, that doesn’t mean everyone is on the up-and-up. Listen to your gut. The LE rangers have access to a jail in the Valley, and I’ve been told many a tale about the John Muir Hotel and its hot pocket cuisine.

Communal kitchens and bathrooms are cleaned every day, and there’s a strong chance your preferred kitchen or bathroom will be closed for cleaning at some point when you need it. Just walk a few more minutes to get to the other one.

I beg you, don’t bring your pets (dogs, cats). Pets are not allowed in most housing and most buildings, as well as prohibited on almost all the trails. Unless you have a high-up position with “adult housing”, your units are small and I can’t stress that enough. It’s not fair to keep an active animal cooped up in your tiny cabin or room, and you can’t take them on many adventures. Don’t fraud the ADA laws by claiming it’s an emotional support animal. If you do well and truly need it, that’s one thing; true service animals are protected by law, and ESAs are allowed in housing (though not at work or on the trails still). But if it’s not truly a service animal or ESA, why are you putting that animal through the torment of your tiny accommodations? It’s another sacrifice to make to live here, but if you don’t make it, you’re not being fair to somebody—to the pet, or to wildlife it might affect if it gets loose. Don’t bring your pets.

Unless you’re hired on to a management position (not supervisor! manager) or a higher-up NPS position, or you find your own housing, you won’t be able to have your children here. My first roommate had a son and she had to have her sister take care of him while she spent the summer here.

Coworkers, roommates, and neighbors are going to do things you don’t like. You have to figure out if you’re gonna suck it up, try to talk it out, or make enemies. It can be lonely if you make enemies; it can be torment if you try to suck it up. Try to figure out how to talk to people.

There is a post office and a library. You can opt to have your mail addressed to “general delivery”, or you can pay for a PO Box subscription. For UPS and FedEx shipments, the Housing office address is where you’ll be directed to ship those, and that will be provided upon check-in. You can technically leave packages for pickup, but that has…never been super timely or trustworthy, in my experience. You’re better off trying to get into town to ship from an official store, if it’s UPS or FedEx. Try to ship via USPS if you can.

You’re going to be living in the middle of a wild place. Here, more than most places where there’s civilization, Mother Nature does as she pleases, and she does it often. In the seven years I’ve been here we have closed seven times, six of those for natural disasters. Floods, wildfires, historic amounts of snow, winds strong enough to bring down trees; rockfalls that close off sections of roads, ground saturated to the point where trees topple and sections of road slide out. There is chaos, raw, wild chaos here, and you’re responsible for facing it with a brave face and steely resolve; you’re expected to be calm, cool, collected, professionally addressing guest concerns and answering guest questions and adapting to the challenges of the National Park. Even non-natural chaos springs up; in my second summer, someone’s RV burst into flames in an intersection. Couples fight to a point where law enforcement needs to intervene. Children get lost, worried retired parents ask about their adult children who hiked to Half Dome and now it’s 5pm and when will they be back? You need to be able to roll with the punches, although some of them may be a doozy.

But the most important thing, I think, is to know why you’re here, and hold onto that. Why are you in Yosemite? Some people are here for the easy lifestyle. The rent is cheap, the chores are minimal, it’s easy to duck out of societal expectations (oh sorry, didn’t have any service!), it’s usually pretty easy to save money. Some people are here for the job (mostly the NPS, Conservancy, and Gallery employees), to advance their careers or because they have a passion for what they’re doing. But I would say the people who have the best time are the people who are here for Yosemite (I’m biased, ’cause that’s me). We’re the people who want to crawl all over the Valley walls, walk every mile of trail, find the gems between the lines, look in a direction and say “I want to be there!” and find a way to get to the spot we’ve selected and relish every moment because how many people save up for months or years to visit here for just a few days and their big hike up the Mist Trail is your pre-work run, how many people have stood atop this outcropped rock looking down at a bustling Valley, and how many people have had the pleasure to enjoy a solo sunset across Tenaya Canyon from Half Dome, where the Valley looks so peaceful and you can smell the mountain air and taste the pine on the wind, and there’s quiet but not silence.

Living in Yosemite is a dream. You have so much opportunity here. But you have to take the good with the bad, as with anywhere, and it’ll prevent some heartache if you set your expectations about day-to-day living.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I recently came across a Reddit post in which an employee was complaining about their disappointment in working at Yosemite. Their preconceived notions sounded completely uninformed to me—their complaints were about the tourists being everywhere and not being able to find solitude and separation from the modern world for a reset. I’d also seen many other posts in the months prior from people wanting to work in the Park who were asking all the questions about what the jobs were like, Wifi and cell service, housing, and all of it. So I was perplexed why this person had these complaints and felt the need to blast them on a public forum.

I’ve been in Yosemite for seven years, and it’s the same sort of confusion I feel when I get guests that ask me, “What’s there to do here?” I have to say this—people, we literally have the internet at our fingertips 24 hours a day. A vast collection of human knowledge and information, and the ability to ask a huge chunk of the population for answers we can’t find on our own search. WHY? Why are so many people unable to do their own research? I understand spontaneity, but unless you live in a gateway community (in which case you’re probably already familiar and this doesn’t apply), you have time to do a quick search to get an idea for what you want to do. On a trip to the Grand Canyon with my mom, we had scheduled a boat ride near Lake Powell, only for the ride to be cancelled due to a rock slide in the canyon. After some puzzling about what to do next, I tossed out the idea of going to Zion National Park. My mom was on board, and we stopped by a McDonald’s for food and Wifi. Half an hour later we had a plan for a couple of short hikes and knowledge of the shuttle schedule so we wouldn’t be stranded in the canyon at the end of the day.

I will never understand those who don’t research and plan, even just a tiny bit, before going somewhere. And I especially will never understand those who don’t research and get angry when they learn that things aren’t just going to magically fall into place for them. If you don’t bother to have something of a plan, when all the resources are out there and available to you so easily, my sympathy for you is extremely limited.

I spent a lot of time responding to the folks who DID ask about the various aspects of living and working in Yosemite, and after reading the post about the disappointed employee, I had a sudden drive to revisit that idea from 2016—to write up a guide to the life of a Yosemite employee. So here it is. It’s long-winded and could probably be expanded more—one day I may write a book. But for now, all the knowledge I’ve gathered over my time here about the technical side of working and living in Yosemite has been collected here, for easy reference in the future, and hopefully it’ll stop others from setting unrealistic expectations before taking up a job in Yosemite.

Now if only I could find a way to get visitors to plan ahead…

My Personal History with Yosemite’s Famed “Firefall”

My, my, it has been a while, hasn’t it?

Last year, to be brief, was emotionally hard for me. I had hardly any energy to hike, let alone photograph, and don’t even think about processing the photographs. I was lucky to put out as many photos as I did after my trip to Death Valley in February last year. And the website just languished, forgotten, neglected, a pet project I couldn’t care for because I needed what little energy I had to care for myself.

Maybe it’s just me being optimistic, but I think there’s been a shift this year. I’ve been reviewing the photos I did take last year and processing some, many months after the fact. It’s been fantastic. While I lack photographing inspiration here at home (Yosemite Valley has been beautifully sunny and dry…not particularly thrilling winter conditions), I have put the energy into my hobby in other ways. I’ve revamped some areas of my site (go on and take a look around!), processed some photos I’m quite pleased with, added them to the site, and generally been cleaning house with my photography files and plans.

As I wrap up my work on the website, I begin pondering what I want to photograph this year. Some seasonal photos I’ve been wanting for a while are still on the list. But more immediately, we are on the precipice of the famed Firefall season. And I love chasing that Firefall.

I’ll cut to the chase: there’s pretty much no chance of a Firefall effect on Horsetail Fall this February.

And that happens. Everything has to happen just right, you know? And while we got a TON of snow in December, January was dead dry. February is continuing that trend, and the waterfall is but a wet smear on the shoulder of El Cap, with no precipitation in sight.

I’d first heard of Horsetail’s magical February display in 2014 or 15, when I was but a visitor to these parts. I wished to see it but, alas, I lived on the eastern side of the mountain range, with a front-wheel drive Mini Cooper that wouldn’t be able to handle mountain pass conditions if the weather conditions granted the possibility of the show. I didn’t believe I was destined to see it, not for a long time.

But then I got a job and seeing the show became a lot more feasible. The day before Valentine’s in 2017, my boyfriend (now husband) and I drove out to the western end of the Valley and got caught in the crawling queue of traffic, back when the crowd restrictions allowed for one lane of Northside to be used for parking/pedestrians and you could shoot from the southern bank of the Merced River. We never got the chance to get out of the car, but we got to see the fall as we were passing through the viewing area, and I remember exclaiming, “Oh, wow!” as we caught sight of it. It is truly a spectacular phenomenon. As with almost everything, photos don’t truly do it justice, strive as we might to properly compose, shoot, and process…

I returned on Valentine’s with some work friends who hadn’t seen it yet, and we tarried at the viewing area, amazed, grinning, enjoying the show. I tried to see it a couple other times that year, from the southern riverbank, and got skunked on the day I was taking a visiting friend to see it. Such is life.

I wasn’t invested in photography at that point. Nor the next year, in 2018, when we didn’t even get a showing, as we had an atrociously dry winter (much like this one).

But 2019! 2019 I had my first DSLR and a bargain-bin tripod, and we got absolutely dumped on in early February. I took some friends to the southern riverbank, when it was still open for viewing but no parking allowed, and then my newly minted husband and I snowshoed from the Chapel along the Valley Loop trail to try and find a clear spot to see the fall from. I was already developing a distaste for being in the thick of the crowd of people all getting the same shot, and wondered if it was at all possible to get a little higher off the Valley floor and in a smaller crowd of people.

We succeeded. A little over a mile from the Chapel we came to a little clearing with a nearly clean shot of the waterfall and mountain, and less than half a dozen other people. Intimidated by the clearly more knowledgeable and better equipped other photographers, I set up my budget setup and watched the show.

And what a show! Yosemite rewarded my gambles that day. The photographers nearby had shot the event before and they’d never seen anything like it. The sky was clear—not super unusual but good news for the lighting of the fall—but a strong wind blew from the northeast. It blasted tons of loose powder from the mountaintop, straight into the path of the setting sun’s light. Suddenly this amazing phenomenon of a little bitty waterfall, lit up in a glowing orange, was three times as big, a swirling cascade of fiery mist.

That was the day I shot Raven and Firefall, and that shot caused me to think, you know, maybe I could do this photography thing. Even today, three years later, I look at this image with immense pride. Is it perfect? Nooooooo. But it’s unique. No one else has a shot of the Firefall like this one, and I adore it. I don’t know if Yosemite will ever bless me with another show like this, but even if she doesn’t, I treasure this one and will always be fond of it.

2020 was dry. Just as well, because the world devolved into chaos that year, right? Nevertheless, in anticipation of it maybe happening, NPS placed new restrictions on viewing. No parking, no dropoffs, and no foot traffic along Southside Drive. The southern riverbank viewing area was officially off-limits. Overly optimistic visitors still rushed in, set up for a non-existent show along Northside, I even saw someone set up by the El Cap bridge (which is not where you wanna be for the Firefall effect, just saying). All left disappointed, because there was no waterfall for the effect.

2021 arrived. The pandemic had been a weird time and NPS had experimented with a reservations-only system for the summer, and though they’d rescinded it for the winter, re-implemented it for the Firefall season in an attempt to control the crowds. That…didn’t work. As far as I could tell, they set up reservations based on the amount of cars the whole Park could accommodate, but all those people packed into the Valley, and it was an utter madhouse. I was nearly determined to stay in and avoid it. I’ve developed a love/hate relationship to the phenomenon now; what a beautiful, magical show! But so many people! And this was the year I noticed that, without fail, someone always had to comment on a social media Horsetail photo with some iteration of, “They used to throw fire off of Glacier Point for the original Firefall!” Guys, Ma Nature’s been putting on this show for ages. The piddly little fire show they did for half a century ain’t original, and it’s best left in the history books. You sound old when you tell me about the Glacier Point Firefall. Stop it.

Back on track, I almost didn’t go out to see Horsetail in 2021. I was planning a trip to Death Valley with husband, where we’d meet up with my mother and enjoy the good weather. I don’t remember what prompted me, but I finally talked myself into going out on the eve of our trip to see about a new vantage from which to shoot.

We set out a couple of hours before sunset. The sky was very cloudy, and I set my expectations for no show. Nevertheless I figured I’d scout the area I had in mind, and after a while, my husband and I ducked off-trail to work our way up the slopes of the southern rim of the Valley. After picking our way through the woods for nearly an hour, we stumbled upon a great opening in the tree canopy with a clear shot of El Cap…and a dozen or so other people. Word had gotten out about the higher vantage point, as others have shot from there previously, and it was a Saturday, so I tried to calm my frustrations. It was still much, much better than the (likely) thousand+ person crowd at Northside Drive’s viewing area.

I set up my equipment and fiddled with the settings, the composition, delighted to have the Cathedral Rocks at my disposal as well. I noticed the clouds shifting, openings starting to drift into place at the mouth of the Valley. Would I get it after all? Well, as you can see above, I did indeed. The sky lit up, the horizon and the waterfall glowed, and that massive crowd a mile away across the Valley erupted in cheers that I could hear from my vantage.

I only saw a couple of the other shots from that vantage on that evening, and I remember one of them even being crooked. I took pride in mine again. It’s more of a typical shot, but I still enjoy it because it isn’t the same shot everyone else gets (that ultra-zoomed-in portrait shot of the waterfall and just the waterfall).

And that should bring us up to 2022, this year, yeah?

Except…

Except Yosemite is wonderful.

See, as I’m sure you know, the Earth rotates in such a way that the sun’s position kind of bounces back and forth between points in the sky at sunrise and sunset, from solstice to solstice. So if the sun sets at a particular point in the sky 59 days past the winter solstice, it stands to reason it set there about 59 days prior to the winter solstice on its journey TO the farther point on the solstice.

I’d remembered reading a long time ago that the effect could happen in the Fall season, too, if the waterfall was flowing, because the sun was setting in the same place as in February. Except, the waterfall never flows in the autumn. It’s a gamble every year as to whether or not it’ll flow for February! How could such an ephemeral fall flow in autumn, when the Big Name falls are down to a trickle or even dry? It simply can’t. Unless a massive rainstorm passes through.

The odds of that happening in autumn, with enough water to kickstart the ephemeral waterfalls, in time for the sun to be setting in the portion of the sky where it sets in February, are, well, I don’t know what they are, but it’s EXTREMELY unlikely. People who have been living and working in or near the Park for years can’t recall the last time they witnessed the Firefall effect in the autumn season.

I knew all the factors for the sun. I even did the math and pinpointed the exact day that would line up with the “peak” viewing day in February. Now all I needed was a massive rainstorm.

The thought hung around in the back of my mind, a wishful, wistful sort of, “Wouldn’t that be so cool?” thought, with no real belief behind it. After five years in Yosemite I’d begun to recognize general weather patterns, and I knew that although we might see some rain in October and November, it wouldn’t be enough to wake up Horsetail from the summer slumber, and even less likely in time to catch the sun. But the thought hung around, a fun plaything for my imagination.

Yosemite is wonderful…

A freak storm rolled through. A massive one. It rained, rained hard, a constant downpour, for nearly two days. I rarely see storms like that in Yosemite Valley, and especially at that time of the season. The ephemeral waterfall behind where I work raged. The ephemeral waterfall behind the Ahwahnee, across the Valley, was raging. Water dumping off the cliff faces in every direction. From dry cliffs to Spring-magnitude waterfalls, in the midst of the autumnal colour display, Yosemite put on a unique show for us in autumn 2021.

I remember quietly realizing in awe. It’s possible. As the storm waned I booked it down to the western end of the Valley. Horsetail was running.

It wasn’t the perfect date. In fact it was about a week past, and I wasn’t sure I’d get a great show. But maybe…maybe I’d get a small something. A little bit of the pale yellow-orange glow the waterfall throws off early in its display season in February.

I tried the day the rainstorm let up, and was skunked out by cloud cover on the horizon. Desperate and hopeful, I went back out the next day.

I took full advantage. The viewing area closure for Southside Drive is only in effect for the February season; since a show isn’t expected in autumn, it was perfectly allowed to set up on the southern riverbank of the Merced. So I did. I knew I’d probably never get a chance to shoot from there again, so I took advantage. And I wanted to show off the autumn colours. I looked and looked and found my composition. I was crouched between two trees, my tripod as low as I could get it, barely stable at the very, very edge of the riverbank.

There were only a half a dozen other people there.

And Yosemite hit us with some magic. I don’t know what we did to deserve it, but Yosemite granted us a bonus autumnal Firefall show. I look at this photo today and could cry from happiness. I got a shot no one else can get. I did everything right. I am so, so happy about this photo. It may not be my magnum opus—it’ll probably be awhile before I land on one of those—but it is, for now, my pride and joy. I see behind it all the work I’ve put into this photography hobby, all the hope I have for good conditions, all the forethought I put into possible photographic compositions, and all the absolute wonder and blessing I’ve been granted by being able to live in Yosemite.

The waterfall is dry leading into this year’s Firefall season; once more following the pattern of wet odd-numbered years and dry even-numbered years. I’d been wondering what kind of shot I’d get this year anyway—how can I possibly compare with that show from 2019, or create something as unique as the autumnal shot? I dare to tempt fate and say I can’t. Because every time I think I’ve seen the full extent of the wonder Yosemite can offer, she goes and blows my mind with something new. So fingers crossed!

Even if that doesn’t work; it’s okay. Maybe someday I’ll get that same shot everyone gets. Maybe I’ll just be shooting the same shots in five years, a plain glowing waterfall, snow-dusted landscape around it, maybe some clouds, maybe a little high, maybe a little low. Maybe I’ll stop shooting it. But I can happily agree, it’s magic. And if you don’t mind the crowds, or you don’t mind the effort to find somewhere away from the crowds, it is worth every minute you stand there watching it.

Just please…be careful with where you step. Yosemite is giving us magic. Let’s try to take care of her while we’re admiring it.

The Colour of Sandstone

View fullsize

The Colour of Sandstone

View fullsize

The Colour of Sandstone III

View fullsize

The Colour of Sandstone II

The Colour of Sandstone (A Series); 23 & 24 January, 2021

What is the colour of sandstone?

The short answer is: Brown. Sandstone is brown. It’s all just shades. of. brown.

But that’s just not what my eyes saw as I wandered throughout Coyote Buttes, a big chunk of landscape that was nothing but sandstone, in every colour I could think it would be and more.

I didn’t expect purple sandstone. I didn’t expect pink and yellow. Orange? Sure. Red? That’s the characteristic sandstone of the Southwest, amirite? White, sure, I’ll give you that. But I even saw bits of green and blue muddled into the sandstone when it was wet. I mean, they weren’t the prettiest blues and greens…but they were there. I swear they were there.

And yet, as I pulled my images onto the computer to process them, in trying to bring back the colours I saw, I inevitably hit a wall after staring at the photos for hours on end where they just looked brown. Because they are brown. What the h*ck. Doin me a bamboozle, sandstone. I don like it.

Rewind.

We’ve all seen images of The Wave, right? That infamous little spot in the middle of trailless nowhere, Arizona with notoriously restricted access but an excess of applicants to see it, all because someone took a picture and another person shared it to the right (?) place. And I can’t blame anyone; it’s an enchanting spot, stripes that go on forever in fantastical twists and turns, in a surreal landscape that doesn’t look like it belongs on planet Earth.

Well, I was one of the applicants in January. Two, actually, because I lost the permit lottery the first time. But on the second round, I just so happened to land a permit for a Saturday, and as their lottery changes in the winter—where you can apply for three days’ lotteries with one application, on Fridays for Saturday, Sunday, and Monday—I also put in for the other restricted-access location and scored that permit for the following day, Sunday.

Now, Husband and I are no strangers to off-trail hiking. I wouldn’t say we’re advanced, but we’ve got experience, and tested ourselves in the desert with a trip to the Ashtray about a week prior to scoring the Coyote Buttes permits. So we weren’t intimidated with the notion that there were no trails in these areas. And we made good time to the Wave. The Wave was everything we anticipated and more. It had snowed the night before, so all that snow was melting. A group was already at the Wave, a couple and their guide, and the guide told us all we were lucky to see it while it was wet—it saturated the colours in the sandstone, made them more vibrant and clearly separate.

If you explore the wave for any longer than a minute, you’ll find “The Wave Slot”, a teeny little “slot canyon”-esque section (read: it’s a thin section between walls) of the formation with darker sandstone. That should have been my first clue. But I was simply fascinated with the endless compositions, and didn’t really realize what I was seeing.

But the Wave wasn’t enough. We had a list of things to see in Coyote Buttes beyond just the Wave. So we took our photos, ate our lunch, enjoyed the view, and made our way out to the less-populated places of the area.

And that was when things got weird. Really surreal; Dr. Seuss-meets-Salvador Dali odd. As we climbed higher up the butte, the landscape below began to show us just how funky it was. Have you ever been to Devils Postpile? Pretty cool, right? Hexagonal columns of basalt, fascinating from the ground; but get on top of the formation and it’s like being on a turtle’s back, the shapes simply etched into the rock at your feet, hexagons and hexagons and hexagons.

Well, sandstone can do that too, apparently. It’s all lumpy and not as clearly defined as most columnar basalt, but the shapes are there.

And then I really started to see the colours. Yeah, we saw the colours at the Wave, but that was a very close and concentrated view. From above, the landscape was rife with colours. Creamy and saturated, soft and hard, I could think of a hundred adjectives for the colours of the sandstone I saw in the landscape below us. And after some time of being up close, I finally began to notice the details.

At our third location for the day, I noticed the sandstone was freckled. Moreover, though, it was not just striped along its layers—the small ridged sections where erosion gets a little chunky—but striped through the layers, and I got really confused. Don’t clear up this mystery for me, though, because I’ll just revel in its beauty.

Somewhere between our fifth and sixth location for the day, I must have suffered some sort of subconscious overload. After snapping several art shots, marveling at the dark purple splotches in the sandstone, I caught up to my husband and burst out incredulously, “Mother Nature was tripping balls when she made this place. I feel like I’m walking on tie-dye! THE GROUND IS TIE-DYED. WHAT.”

And things only continued in the strange vein the next day. In the second section the colours were even more obnoxiously mixed, three, four, five colours packed together in a small one-foot section of sandstone, swirls through layers going crazy. Dark purple tinged with vibrant orange, a smouldering coal jutting out from the wall; pastel pinks and oranges and yellows snaking around each other while all I could think was, “Oh, the places you’ll go.”

So what is the colour of sandstone?

Let’s be real; it’s just a pigment of the imagination. Because it’s all brown. But I swear it was purple. It was creamsicle orange. It was peach and pink; it was a live coal; it was rust; raspberry; boysenberry; lemon, banana, it was eye candy to an extreme.

And don’t even get me started on the texture.

The Light Show

View fullsize

The Light Show

The Light Show; 20 February, 2021

I hate getting the same shot as everyone else.

Okay, maybe not hate it, but I’m usually pretty disappointed in the lack of originality in a shot taken from a popular vista. I don’t find them as compelling, or as creative, so I don’t share those shots often. And I utterly loathe being in a crowd, especially a crowd of photographers.

Enter Yosemite’s ephemeral darling: Horsetail Fall. Every February, if conditions are right, the waterfall (if it’s flowing) lights up in the setting sun. I mentioned this in my first story, and you can find more information about this event on the National Park Service page about it, or even on their own blog post. The hype around it is staggering; everyone seems to catch Firefall Fever. Photographers flock to the Park. Social media floods with images, and people who didn’t know about it two days ago suddenly have plans to make their way in to see it. Everyone wants an opportunity to see nature’s spectacular, rare, limited-time show.

When I moved to Yosemite in 2016, I had known about the phenomenon for a year or two but couldn’t make it to the Park at that time of year. But now? Now I lived here. I had all the opportunity in the world!

And so on 13 February, 2017, I drove out with my husband (boyfriend then) after work and though we couldn’t park, we could see it from the car, and it was amazing. It really is a fantastic spectacle. The waterfall really glows. Often, those of us who live here become numbed; we see this overwhelming beauty every day and, while I wouldn’t say we’re bored of it, we definitely roll our eyes at people getting excited about it. But if we remember what it was like when we first saw it, if we can feel even an inkling of our original excitement, we become more sympathetic—and if I focus on my first sight of Horsetail, I understand why people packed onto Northside cheer loudly enough to hear a mile away when the sun hits the right spot.

Early in the short “Firefall” season, it’s definitely more of a light, angelic yellow; and later in the season it begins to get closer to the lava orange-red that you see most pictures trying to show. But that early viewing was no less impressive. I went back twice more that year to see it. The next time was the very next day, Valentine’s, with some of the best friends I could hope for; and the next time was with a visiting friend who was a photographer, and though that one was a bust, I like to recall that time because my friend had some good advice about being a photographer that I didn’t think applied to me, but I try to keep in mind often now.

Crowding in with everyone on Northside or Southside (which was allowed at the time and is now closed to viewing) was not a big deal for me then. But in 2019, I’d been living in the Park for nearly three years; I had become significantly less fond of crowds; and I had my first DSLR. I’d become more familiar with the phenomenon and how everyone seemed to have the same photo of it. I didn’t have an overwhelming push to get a unique shot, but I had the drive to be away from people, so I went with now-Husband to a spot along the Valley Loop Trail, with only a handful of other people. A very enjoyable viewing with a surprisingly great shot as a result.

And now, 2021.

As I’ve become more involved in photography, it’s harder to resist being jaded over this event. Since a week into February I’ve seen an oversaturation of Horsetail Fall “Firefall” photos on my Yosemite and California and Landscape photography groups. Edits across the spectrum, from dull to realistic to impossibly vibrant or incorrectly coloured, mostly the same close-cropped shot or a slightly wider view without much of interest in the frame around it. Everyone hyped up on Firefall Fever. Beyond that, almost every post about it had some person talking about the “real” or “original” Firefall.

Let’s pause a second to address that. The “Firefall” being referenced by those commenters was an event held jointly between Glacier Point and Camp Curry on a nightly basis for 95 years from the late 1800s to the late 1900s. This event consisted of a bonfire burning at Glacier Point and, when signaled, the tenders of the fire would push the still-burning ashes over the cliff edge to the forest below. People who witnessed this event (it ended in 1968) like to come out of the woodwork and reminisce about it when Horsetail photos are posted. I get it, it’s a memory for you. But I take issue with it. First of all, they were pouring fire into a forest.

Fire.

Into a Forest.

Just…just think for a second about why that’s a bad idea, then let’s move on.

But what really gets me is that people call it “the Real Firefall” or “the Original Firefall”. It blows my mind because it was a manmade spectacle. It was fake. And furthermore, just because humans didn’t really “know” about what Horsetail was doing in February until the 1970s doesn’t mean it wasn’t happening for ages and ages before we “discovered” it. Pretty sure the sun has been setting in that area around that time of the year for, oh, I don’t know, centuries. I think Mother Nature’s “Firefall” is the original and real one. It was going before we got here, it’ll be there after we’re gone.

Moving back to the Firefall of 2021, I got bored early on of the shots being shared. It made it really difficult to work up any hype to go out and see it myself. I knew that if I did go out for it, I would not be in the crowd on Northside. I don’t think you could pay me to be out there. I’d already shot from the Valley Loop Trail, and I wanted a higher perspective. So, off-trail it was.

I struck out on 20 February, 2021, with a vague idea of where I wanted to end up. I’d scoped a place nearby about a year prior, and deemed it too far East; but it was a good starting point. I went with the intention of scouting the new area, and the notion that if I did shoot it, I’d shoot the same photo as everyone else—the close-cropped portrait of the waterfall and the rocks immediately around it, and nothing else. I’d shoot it just to have it. It wasn’t an inspiring notion, but I reasoned that it was to prepare for the next time, and to make sure I didn’t squander an opportunity others would do some questionable things to experience.

And then, as we were going, I kept my eye on the clouds. I was very nearly convinced they would block the sun and we’d get nothing at all.

When we finally cleared the trees and found a spot, there were about a dozen other people there. It was a Saturday, after all, so I wasn’t entirely surprised, but the notion of a more rare perspective was dashed on-site. Other photos have been taken from that area, so it was never going to be completely unique and original; but it wouldn’t be the same-old, same-old. Alas. Tired and cutting it close to showtime, I took my place, figuring it’d be good practise, at any rate.

My plans changed the moment I surveyed the scene. The clouds had thinned out on the horizon, but were still dominant in the sky, promising the potential for a colourful sunset. I couldn’t ignore that. I set up for a wide shot and held my breath.

The sun took a few minutes to sink below the cloud cover. As it peeked through, the bottom of the fall lit up, and the glow slowly seeped upward until this little sliver on the rock was a brilliant streak of yellow-orange light. As the minutes ticked by, the the sun began to dye the clouds too, and a beam of light shooting through the hazy atmosphere over the mountains directly at El Capitan deepened to nearly a rosy red. I could hardly believe the light show playing out on the scene before me. It was more of a sunset than I’d dared to hope for; the kind of scene I could only dream of. The oranges became darker and more vibrant as the show became more intense while the evening began to wane.

And then, twenty minutes on, the sun had disappeared behind the horizon, and the show was done.

…

A couple of others have posted their photos from that day, from the area I was perched. Again with the array of edits—dull, realistic, over-vibrant. Some of them were even crooked. So I’ve been very hesitant to share my photo. Concerns it would get lost in the shuffle and ignored as I’ve been ignoring many of the photos recently, due to burnout from Firefall Fever, and over all that, the lack of excitement of it being anything like a unique shot.

I didn’t have the heart to try and process my photo when I got back that night, and the next day I drove out to Death Valley for a week. On my way out, I passed Valley View. I have never seen that viewpoint so massively overcrowded. The parking was three cars deep and no room for more, and an overwhelming amount of tripod-manning photographers had completely covered the riverbank. Not a stone left to stand on. The story at Tunnel View was much the same. It made me shudder to think about what Northside Drive had looked like the previous night, and made me grateful for my comparatively sparsely-populated perch.

When I got home and looked at my shot again, I felt a little bit more motivation to process it. The orange that evening was so vibrant it was almost unrealistic; and I hope I’ve managed to ride that line of unbelievability that nature set forth. I am grateful my home continues to bless me with the unexpected, and I’ll treasure this experience, unexpected as it was.

The Threshold

The Threshold, 23 January, 2021

The whole gym was turned to face the announcer, and with each number drawn the people around me would sigh, grumble, and mutter under their breath, while the lucky one got to announce whether or not they accepted. Of course, everyone accepted. Though it wasn't peak season, far more people left disappointed than successful. Including myself.

That was not even a week into what would become three weeks spent exploring the American Southwest, primarily in Utah, while my husband and I were out of work due to a regional COVID closure. Two weeks later I was back, sitting in the Kanab Center Gym, having thrown my hat into the ring once again for The Wave lottery. There were fewer applicants on the 22nd of January, but still more applicants than spaces. I wasn't going to leave empty-handed again, though; even if I didn't get the highly coveted Coyote Buttes North, I'd get Coyote Buttes South, and do my best to be grateful for the solitude and oddity of the southern region.

The weather on the board wasn't looking too nice. Saturday, 40% chance of snow. Sunday, 20%. Monday, 100% snow and rain. Even if I got a permit, the weather might shut me out.

One winner declined. A second. Nerves continued to be wracked, and then--

"Nineteen!"

I threw up my arms in triumph. We'd scored a permit for Saturday. We accepted. We also picked up a permit for the south. Because who knew when we'd have an opportunity again?

We set out Saturday morning with the assurance that if the road was too squirrelly, or the weather conditions turned nasty, as tough as it would be, we'd bow out gracefully and plan to return another time. Mercifully, the conditions worked out in our favour—though I like to think we stacked the deck a little, with our lifted Jeep Wrangler entering through the less-messy-though-longer southern end of the road, which was still frozen through by the time we got on it.

Only 20 people were allowed into the Coyote Buttes North region that day, as had been the case for as long as there's been a lottery, as far as I know. But I found out about three hours before hiking in that the lottery was actually set to change only a week hence. I would be one of the last few groups to have this remote, trailless wilderness nigh unpopulated--the daily limit would be upped to 64 persons or 16 groups at the start of the next month. Talk about lucky.

Our luck continued quite nicely into the permit boundary, as the sky began to clear and the dusting of snow began to recede in the sunshine. We made good time, despite a later start, and by 10:30 we were slogging our way up the final ascent to the famed Wave.

As we stepped in, it felt almost like entering a cathedral. Somber but not unhappy silence enclosed us. Elegant lines danced around us, the colours of the sandstone playing coy, and a small puddle in the entryway reflecting the bright blue sky. I was so enchanted with the lines and colours. The subtleties drew me in, delighting my eyes with fins and swirls. And I hadn't even seen the classic view yet.

Despite limited access, we ran into three other people at The Wave. One, a local guide who most likely had made several trips into the region for the formation, said we were lucky to see it when the sandstone was wet--it made the colours deeper, more vibrant. I cherished this information, still feeling lucky.

I ran around the formation, chasing endless compositions, for perhaps half an hour. Like Yosemite, it was hard to take a bad picture there. But after sifting through the shots I took, I've come back to this one several times. It seems to encapsulate almost everything special about my visit to The Wave--the wet sandstone, the fine fins and ridges, the stripes in the rock, the water, the blue sky; I definitely felt lucky to be there that day.