Leon Turnbull Photography

Welcome to the best waterfall in the Eastern Sierra of California. No question about it. Rainbow Falls plunges 101 ft. off a cliff on the Middle Fork of the San Joaquin River. A magnificent sight indeed. I’ve been wanting to come here for a few years now. And finally this year, we made it out to see Rainbow Falls.It was worth the wait.

We arrived at our campsite in the early afternoon. As I already mentioned, I was disappointed to see there were mosquitoes about. Argh. Not too many, but I wasn’t expecting any. I hate those little buggers. If I were Noah, I would have squashed the two that made it onto the Ark. Sigh. Anyway, after setting up camp and eating dinner, we hiked down to Rainbow Falls to be there for sunset. It is a 3 mile round-trip hike to Rainbow Falls, and then Lower Rainbow Falls. My six year old, Jadon, had no problems on any of the hiking we did this weekend. He is quite the little hiker. In fact, he wanted to keep on chugging on the last day when the rest of us were all too pooped to do any more hiking (including myself). My three year old, Nekoda, did very well on the hike to Rainbow Falls. She hiked 2.5 out of the 3 miles (we carried her the remainder of the way). I was very proud of how well she did on this hike. The next day, though, she was a bit too tired and I had to carry her for most of the hiking we did. It’s not easy carrying around a 35 pounder on your back (especially one that doesn’t sit still too well). My wife didn’t really like carrying all my camera equipment either (which was probably only a tad lighter than 35 pounds).

We went down to Lower Rainbow Falls first (that pic will be posted later). It was getting late and I wanted to make sure I got down to that waterfall. The kids had fun throwing rocks in the water, while I went to take pics. It is funny how kids can be so entertained by something so simple as throwing rocks in water. In fact, it is pretty much all they wanted to do all weekend. Ah, to be a kid again. After shooting the lower falls, Jadon and I whipped back up to the upper Rainbow Falls here, while Tara and Nekoda took their slow, sweet time hiking back. It was just about sunset, and the light was very nice shooting the upper Rainbow Falls. Sunset is definitely the best time to photograph this waterfall. By the time we made it back to the trailhead, we were hiking in the dark. It was a great first day at Devil’s Postpile Natl. Monument.