Montana
Rainbow Falls
129 mi from Bozeman · ~3.7 hr drive
47ft tall
≈ 14 m
≈ 14 m
Rainbow Falls is a named waterfall in Montana — a smaller 47-foot cascade, about 129 miles from Bozeman, MT. Full visit details below.
- State
- Montana
- Nearest city
- Bozeman, MT · 129 mi · ~3.7 hr drive
- Height
- 47 ft (14 m)
- Coordinates
- 47.5344°, -111.2038°
From Wikipedia: Rainbow Falls is a waterfall on the Missouri River in Great Falls, Montana, just upstream from Crooked Falls and downstream from Colter Falls and Rainbow Dam. It is 47 feet (14m) high and 1,320 feet (402.3m) wide. The waterfall is part of the five Great Falls of the Missouri. The river spills over a sheer ledge of sandstone in the Kootenai Formation, forming the falls. The falls used to flow with a great deal of force year-round. In 1914 the river shortly upstream was dammed for hydroelectric power by the Rainbow Dam, which forms a run-of-the-river reservoir. As a result, the falls can almost totally dry up in the summer with only a few narrow strips of water trickling down its face. A railroad bridge crosses the river directly above the falls. Excerpt from the Wikipedia article on Rainbow Falls (Missouri River), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Visiting Rainbow Falls
The exact location is at 47.5344°, -111.2038° — open in Google Maps for driving directions from your location.
Before you go: check current conditions with the appropriate land manager — state parks department, U.S. Forest Service ranger district, or National Park Service unit. Trail access, parking, water levels, and seasonal closures all vary. Several waterfalls in our database are seasonal and may run dry between mid-summer and the next rainy season.
If you've visited Rainbow Falls and have current notes (parking situation, dog policy, seasonality, kid-friendliness), tell us at /contact — we update pages as we learn more.
Other waterfalls within 30 miles
Sources
Location and tag data for Rainbow Falls comes from OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL license) ; the Wikipedia article linked above provides additional history. We do not modify the underlying data — this page presents what's already publicly recorded. To suggest corrections, see our methodology page or contact us.