III. Horsetail Falls

A giant had stepped foot here. It had perhaps blazed a mighty warpath, causing the ground to buckle in its wake, until it looked down at the Falls in front of it and, whether in admiration or fear of the water’s ethereal glow, turned heel. Thus creating the sudden Drop we see now.

The mountain’s head is ridden with dandruff, a light layer of snow juxtaposed with the water’s fiery complexion. Evergreens spring from its scalp, enduring through the cold winter months with stalwart resolve.

The water rushes down the mountainside in a subdued, confined sprint. Harnessing the setting sun’s unflagging refulgence to transform its very material form in the scope of the human lens, it tears down the cliff’s face as if some great unholy beast were awakening from within and splitting the very mountain in two. It illuminates the pores and indents within the adjacent rock, a golden nectar curing the mountain’s grim austerity.

The water’s radiance is no constant. For one, the sun must be shedding its light from a specific position up in the sky; this is only possible within February, as winter’s stark chokehold over the environment atrophies and the budding influence of spring sheepishly seeps in. Moreover, the vacuous conjurations of rainwater in the sky must make themselves scarce in the sun’s line of sight. Even the haziest smokescreen of gray threatens the delicacy of the waterfall’s illusion.

All of this makes for an ephemeral window of time during which the water is able to glow–no more than 15 minutes a day for about two weeks in a single month.

But the water seizes this opportunity without hesitation, grasping onto the fleeting strands of sunlight that grace its presence and desperately holding on for life, fighting for its chance to become something truly otherworldly no matter how transient this grand state may be. And once the last empyrean embers dissipate, the water returns to dormancy, patiently awaiting its next time to shine.

From u/Ezumphoto on reddit

Horsetail Falls in Yosemite National Park