I knew it was a long shot. I tried to see Yosemite's firefall anyway.

But at 9:18 a.m. on Feb. 1, I got a Slack message from a fellow SFGATE reporter who was looking at reservations on Recreation.gov. “I’m surprised to see that every day is still open,” she wrote.

I logged in and saw that most dates were in fact open, including Feb. 14. It would cost me $35 for a seven-day pass, and all but $2 of that was refundable if I changed my mind. So what did I have to lose?

Here’s what I had to gain: Every February, as the sun dips behind the horizon and when the weather perfectly cooperates, Horsetail Fall transforms into an inferno plunging down the 2,030-foot eastern flank of El Capitan. The phenomenon starts around Valentine’s Day and lasts about two weeks, drawing spectators and photographers from all over the world.

I knew it would be ambitious, requiring a lot of time and effort. But I thought that perhaps if I could experience the firefall, I would feel awed. And moved. And simply more alive. I am a person who needs this sort of thing, and with the pandemic, I haven't been getting as much of it lately. 
I made the reservation.

Flash forward to Feb. 14, when my partner Steve and I were in our car waiting in a line at the Arch Rock entrance to the park. We had driven nearly 500 miles the day before, and based on the mileage we had left to reach the park, and the length of the average car, and the space between cars, we calculated that our wait would be approximately 1.5 hours.

Sometimes, it sucks to be right. We made the best of it, though, eating lunch in the car to kill time, and enjoying the lovely views of the conifer-strewn mountains and boulder-studded Merced River. If you have to wait in line somewhere, this is probably the best place in the universe, we agreed.

We’d come prepared for this, having dropped our dog off with a friend and borrowed two of his bicycles that would allow us to cruise the 3 miles from Yosemite Village’s visitor parking lot to the El Capitan Picnic Area, where we heard the best photos are snapped. As prepared as we were, though, we knew our chances weren’t great. The sky was overcast, and the park’s website showed potential conditions for seeing firefall as only “okay.”

“Based on data from previous years, peak firefall happens when the azimuth of the sun is between 245 and 248 degrees, with the strongest light at 256 to 247 degrees,” a Yosemite hotel brochure explained, listing the best dates for 2021 as Feb. 11-27, with strongest light Feb. 18-22.

“Feb. 15-17 and Feb. 23-26 are also good bets, though not quite as strong,’” the brochure said. “Keep in mind that these aren’t precise dates, as clouds and variations in the sun’s own light can turn a 'good' day into a bad or a 'bad' day into a good — but they’re a good place to start.”

Feb. 14 wasn’t optimal, and we knew that. But because of work obligations, it was the only day we had.

As we finally pulled into the park about 2 p.m., the clouds seemed to be moving aside, with swaths of blue peaking through here and there. And it was hard not to get excited about that.

We parked in the visitors lot and walked what felt like a mile to find a bathroom, noticing a line down the sidewalk at Degnan’s Kitchen. Then we hopped on our bikes and pedaled west on Northside Drive, which was partially closed to cars so that pedestrians could walk to Horsetail Falls.

There were plenty of people en route, but it didn’t feel overwhelming or unsafe, and the road was flanked by a couple of inches of hard-packed snow and tilting evergreens. The valley air was crisp and the soaring granite peaks were simply breathtaking.

Eventually, we came to a clearing on the south side of the road where about 100 people, and nearly as many tripods, were standing and waiting for the spectacle. We propped our bikes next to a tree and looked up at El Cap, our eyes searching for the waterfall. It didn’t seem to be there.

“So the edge of the mountain where it bulges out, if you go to the left, there’s a big gray swath, and right at the top you can barely see a spray of water coming off,” amateur photographer Mike Douglas of Sacramento explained. He had traveled from Sacramento with his trusty Canon R5, and was using the MySunset app to determine the likelihood of the event.

“According to this, it’s 34%,” he said. Wasn’t great. But Douglas seemed to be saying there was a chance, and when I followed his instructions, I could barely make out a trickle of a waterfall.

Since we had about two more hours before sunset, Steve and I biked around, talking to other spectators about why they had come, how long they’d stay and whether they were optimistic. We met people from Walnut Creek, San Francisco, Merced and Manteca, some of whom were trying to see the firefall for the first time, others who showed us magnificent photos from previous years.

When we biked over to the El Capitan Picnic Area, we met a family who had been planning to see the firefall for three years, and this year finally made the trip up from Ventura County. Dave Neuman, 60, showed us digitized versions of slides that his father created in the 1960s depicting the old firefall, which involved sending burning hot embers over the top of Glacier Point and into the valley 3,000 feet below.

The practice began in 1872 and continued through the 1970s, and Neuman still remembers witnessing it as a toddler. He felt lucky to be able to bring his own children back for this newer version of the event, he said.

“We have a very close family,” he said, gesturing toward his wife Heather and their 30-year-old son Brandon and 27-year-old daughter Brittany. “We just enjoy each other’s company.”

Brittany is a nurse, and for the past year, she has been working with COVID-19 patients. The trip was “a nice break from being at the hospital,” she said, a way to replenish her energy and keep herself healthy, mentally and physically.

“That’s why she’s here,” her father said. “This is therapy.”

The time was nearing 5:24 p.m., when the event would allegedly start. The sky wasn’t cooperating at all, though, and I began to accept that this ambitious journey might not yield the desired results.

Still, I was feeling a solidarity with the others who had come. I liked that all of us were here to see this rare and beautiful thing, knowing the odds were against us but trying anyway, on the off-chance that we’d get lucky and the legend would come true.

Despite our efforts and high hopes, it didn’t happen. At 5:30 p.m., people who had been waiting all day began placing the caps back on their lenses and folding their tripods. We’ll try again tomorrow, next week, next year, some told each other.

“It’s a firefail,” Steve joked.

We turned our backs on El Cap and, as the sky darkened and our fingers went numb, we instead watched what people did after the waterfall did not glow.

Some people remained together in the snow exchanging stories about previous firefalls. Children chased each other and threw snowballs, then piled them into a giant snowman that one little boy decided to name “Samuel.” Couples embraced, focusing their attention on each other rather than Yosemite’s wonders. After all, it was Valentine’s Day.

I didn’t detect even a hint of disappointment in the crowd, and an old Mitch Hedberg joke about escalators came to mind:

“I like an escalator, man, because an escalator can never break — it can only become stairs,” he used to say. “There would never have been an ‘Escalator Temporarily Out of Order’ sign, only an ‘Escalator Temporarily Stairs. Sorry for the convenience.’”

In a long line of cars waiting to exit the park, I was also reminded of something Brandon Neuman had said earlier:

“Every day in Yosemite is a good day.”