This is my final waterfall for this week heavy rain and snow. Over 8 inches fell during the 4 day period and filled the creeks and falls. I was not able to make it to Abrams and Ramseys but I still had a decent week of waterfalls.
Rainbow is one of the most popular falls. The roundtrip route is only 5.6 miles and it follows LeConte Creek for much of its way to the falls. The few crossings I had to rock hop today posed no problems unlike yesterday going to Grotto Falls. I didn't encounter anyone else until my return when I met the organized WWW hike headed up. They ran into problem after problem and I now wish I had stopped and walked back up with them as they had lost their sweep at this point. A couple suffered mild hypothermia, one got a nasty splinter under a fingernail and of course all were wet from the rain which began about the time I encountered them. To make matters worse, their bus was not in the parking area when they returned. Ed, the leader had everyone crowd in the tiny outhouse to warm the two with hypothermia while he walked down toward Gatlinburg to get a cellular signal. He found the bus dutifully waiting at the wrong trailhead and finally got things squared away.
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