When the sun bursts through after the rains, as in most places with the right conditions, rainbows can add spectacularly to the natural wonders that make up a laundry list of sightseeing attractions in Yosemite National Park. But rainbows of a different variety can be seen within the park far more frequently than waiting for Mother Nature to mix rain and sunshine in the area and also with much greater predictability. While calling them rainbows would be something of a misnomer, these colorful arches do use the same moisture and sunlight to create similar spectrums of color. But since these are created using the mist from the Yosemite Falls in Yosemite Valley, “fallsbow” might be more accurate, though rather queer, since rain doesn’t come into play. The rainbows coming off of Yosemite Falls is actually much more predictable than natural rainbows occurring in Yosemite Valley since the advent of computers and the employment of some math heavy programming.
The rarest of the rainbows to be found in Yosemite are those that are created in the evening and lit by the moon. And if you wish to experience this phenomenon, as the likes of conservationist John Muir has, you will likely need to immerse yourself with the same sort of life-long dedication to Yosemite as he did in order to stand a chance of getting a glimpse of such an unusual phenomenon.
