The trail down to Stairway Falls a mile away is a little more difficult, but well worth it. It's a series of 6 distinctive 'steps' descending 60-70 ft into a nice pool below. It's not for small children. If you have the time, take any little side trail you see down to the river for some great views as it carves it's way into the wilderness. If the river is down, you can rock hop part of the way. Here's one view you will have - we were lucky enough to be there when the leaf color was near peak. There's a nice swimming hole here :)
In about 15 minutes from Rainbow Falls, the trail enters a clearing and some nice campsites - continue on and follow the trail across a small creek. Pay close attention along here. As soon as you cross the creek, the trail splits. The more obvious trail heads up and eventually comes out on Grassy Ridge Rd, but you want to head to the right on the less obvious path along the river. It's maybe 10 to 15 minutes more to the top of Stairway Falls from the camp sites. You'll also pass a smaller camp site along the way and also might have to maneuver under or over some fallen trees. There's a clearing at the top of the falls and you can kind of peek out to make sure that's where you are. Keep going past this and you may notice some faint side trails that will take you to the side of the waterfall and individual steps. Keep going on the main trail where you will see the base of the falls down a steep bank. Keep going down the trail - it descends steeply to river level where you will notice a trail that leads out to the rocks at the deep pool. The first image below was taken from the trail and is older and with the river at high water levels. The second is from 2008 in drought conditions. I had gone back to check trail conditions, but this is as far as I went.
From here, you'll notice that the trail continues down river. It's mostly fisherman's trail and can be very difficult to follow. I last did it in 2003. Sidepocket Falls is maybe 1/2 mile below Stairway Falls. The problem is when you get to the point to where you are parallel to the falls, you are up on a ridge and there's not a good way to descend the the base area of the falls. We kept going and descended to the point in the 3rd picture below - which was actually a nice cascade, then climbed up the rocks on the right up to Sidepocket. The waterfall isn't very tall, but the area is beautiful and the swimming hole below the falls is killer. On my last trip down there, instead of going back down to the point where I came down to the river, I waded up above the falls and to the right and came out at a little camp site I hadn't seen on the way down. From there I was able to find my way back up to the 'trail' and back up to Stairway Falls. Avoid this area is high water flow! The falls wouldn't be worth seeing, you wouldn't be able to swim in the river, and search and recovery (there wouldn't be a rescue) might not ever find your dead and bloated body.
As I mentioned before, you can continue down river to Windy Falls, but it is not recommended. In April 2000, Harry and I were camping down Augerhole Road about a mile below Windy Falls and decided to try to hike back up towards the falls. You can read all about that by clicking here.