Avalanche! Loopy seeing large piece of El Capitan fall at @YosemiteNPS @NBCNews @CNN @ABC #yosemite #yosemitenationalpark #rock #Avalanche @BBCWorld #elcapitan pic.twitter.com/9fVgQmDXvS
— Alex J Wooden ? ?? (@al3xjw) February 21, 2023
British vacationer: ‘It was mad!’
A customer to Yosemite National Park in California caught on video the second on February 20, 2023 {that a} piece of El Capitan – an iconic 3,000-foot (914-meter) granite monolith – got here crashing down.
British vacationer Alex J. Wood was in Yosemite Valley on the base of El Capitan along with his digicam already in hand, when the rockfall began.
Wooden, who occurred to be taking pictures on the time and captured the ultimate portion of the rock’s fall on video, described the expertise for the Los Angeles Times:
I couldn’t consider what I noticed. It appeared like an enormous outsized grand piano falling in sluggish movement … It was mad.
A spokesman for the park commented the dislodged rock was between 1,000 and a pair of,000 cubic yards (764 and 1,528 cubic meters) in measurement.
The Instances reported nobody was injured by the preliminary cascade of stone and particles. Extra rocks fell that evening (the evening of February 20, 2023), and officers quickly closed the park’s primary highway as a precaution.
At present, nonetheless, all of Yosemite Nationwide Park is closed resulting from extreme climate situations. Its website says it is going to be closed by means of March 1, 2023.
The rockfall occurred throughout ‘firefall’
Yearly in February, Yosemite Nationwide Park receives 1000’s guests because of the phenomenon of “firefall” at Horsetail Falls. EarthSky neighborhood member Mike Mezeul II described firefall this manner:
For 2 weeks out of the yr, a spectacular occasion often called the firefall takes place inside Yosemite Nationwide Park. A whole bunch if not 1000’s of photographers flock to the valley in hopes of capturing the elusive second, that’s, if the climate, snow and light-weight cooperate. If Yosemite receives an ample quantity of snowfall all through the winter, and if the western horizon stays clear, the previous couple of minutes of daylight fall completely upon Horsetail Falls and illuminate it in a vibrant orange and purple. The waterfall glows so fiercely that it seems to be on fireplace.
See Mike Mezeul II’s 2019 image of firefall
Here’s the National Park Service’s description of firefall.
In 2023, firefall occurred between February 10 and February 27.
The rockfall befell close to the location of firefall. The scree dropped from Horsetail Fall, a function on the east face of El Capitan about 1,000 toes (304 meters) above the valley ground.
Following the joy of the rockfall, Wooden managed to seize the firefall phenomenon, because the setting sun illuminated Horsetail Falls on February 20, 2023. He shared the second through Instagram:
Rockfalls frequent, generally harmful at Yosemite
Whereas nobody was injured by the rockfall, a Welsh vacationer was killed and his spouse injured throughout a similar incident in September of 2017.
The NPS warns rockfalls are frequent at Yosemite, although they don’t often trigger accidents:
Rockfalls are a standard prevalence in Yosemite Valley and the park information about 80 rockfalls per yr, although many extra rockfalls go unreported. The rockfall from El Capitan (in September 2017) was related in measurement and extent in contrast with different rockfalls all through the park, although it’s not typical that there are victims.
Backside line: A customer to Yosemite Nationwide Park caught a rockfall on video on February 20, 2023. Nobody was injured by the spectacular collapse from El Capitan, close to Horsetail Fall.