If you're younger than me (and most everybody IS these days) you won't remember the Yosemite Firefall. It was a 'crass piece of commercialism' to promote the Valley in it's early years. And it was AMAZING. Faded out then came back, only to have it's last show in 1968, I believe. I saw the next to the last one, and many more before that.
If you stand at Camp Curry, in a clearing or the apple orchard, or the meadow near the Ahawhee Hotel and look up to Glacier Point over 1,800 feet up and you know where to look you can still see the point where the event made it's fall down the cliff to the rocks below.
Things would begin with the rangers up at Glacier Point and those down at Camp Curry hosting a sing along round the camp fire event around when the evening light was just starting to get flat. By the time it because pitch dark the camp fire above was a glowing sea of bright red embers.
Rangers from Curry would call up to Glacier with a bull horn a ceremonious age old dialog, previewing what was about to happen. On signal, the rangers at Glacier would use two large metal rakes with flat front ends to push the entire camp fire to the edge of the cliff, then off...!
Down they would come, the action of the updraft fanning the embers red hot, and making a fire-fall of flame to a ledge just above Camp Curry. Its was a sight to behold... truly amazing!
People who witnessed it still write of it here... Yosemite Firefall I've written their myself quite a few years back.
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