What are these mystery lights at Yosemite National Park?

The twilight hours at Yosemite National Park can be magical. The rich afternoon colors give way to darkness and then later a spectacular, star-studded night sky.

This “blue hour” is a window of change. Wandering through the meadows, you can feel the air get cooler, hear the frogs begin to croak, smell the crisp night air, and look up to see the stars begin to peep above the towering cliffs.

As the stars start to emerge, something else magical and unique to Yosemite Valley begins: lights flickering on from the surrounding cliffs. Are they simply reflections? Or are your eyes playing tricks on your? No. It’s better than that.

During the spring climbing season, many climbers in Yosemite take more than one day to climb the park’s towering cliffs. As these climbers settle in for the night, you can watch their headlamps turn on in their very vertical campsites high above the valley floor. If you think your view of the scene is magical, try to imagine the climbers’ view.

The photo above shows climbers on El Capitan, but at night in Yosemite Valley, you can see hiker and climber headlamps on many other routes up and down the valley walls.

Eventually, after blue hour ends and the climbers turn off their headlamps for the night, another spectacle begins: Yosemite’s starry night skies appear in all their glory, silhouetted by the now-dark cliffs. Do you wonder what that cloud is that stretches across the sky? That’s our home in the galaxy, the Milky Way, virtually never seen in or near the bright lights of our cities.

It’s about as beautiful as nature can be.

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