Moonbow

It was Friday night and everyone was just hanging out when several of the YLP'ers asked if we wanted to come with them to see the moonbow later on.  They said it only happened on the full moon in May and June, and encouraged us to come.  And so, not wanting to miss something cool and rare, most of us piled into cars at around 930 and headed off for the Valley.

As it turns out, a moonbow is exactly what it sounds like.  It's a rainbow formed by the moon's light shining through the mist from Yosemite Falls.  The reason it only happens in May and June is that the fall has to be full enough with snowmelt so there is enough mist to create the full moonbow.  We arrived at the falls about twenty minutes before the moonbow was supposed to start and were met by quite a crowd of people, some with tripods, others huddled together trying to stay relatively warm and dry.  Apparently the secret of the moonbow was not so secret after all.  But despite the crowd, there was enough room that I could grab an unused rock to set up my little tripod and wait for the big event.

Just a few minutes later, right on schedule, the moon slowly inched up above the far side of the Valley and, as more light shone on the mist at the base of falls, slowly the moonbow formed.  At first it was just a faint glimmer, but soon it grew into a beautiful silvery rainbow stretching across from one side of the river to the other.  It was beautiful, but the weird thing about it was that because it was so dark, the rainbow appeared to the naked eye to be mostly silvery with only faint colors.  But when I captured it on film, the colors of the rainbow were clear to see.

So please, follow this link and enjoy the rest of the moonbow and night photography of Yosemite Valley.