The Best Time to See the Beautiful Shoshone Falls in Southern Idaho

I always feel bad when I hear about someone visiting Twin Falls to see the Shoshone Falls when the waterfall wasn’t roaring. There are a few phases to the Shoshone Falls which offer different viewing experiences and right now is almost the worst time for a visit.

When you visit the Shoshone Falls, you expect to see a glorious waterfall. What you actually get for the majority of the year is a trickle of water. Currently, there is water flowing but it only covers about a third of the area that the Shoshone Falls does when it is at full flow. So, someone visiting right now would be extremely disappointed to see that ‘The Niagara of the West’ isn’t really as impressive as they may have been lead to believe.

There’s a recent article out from The Travel website and they state:

It doesn’t matter which time of the year one is traveling to Southern Idaho to experience this wonder. Travelers cannot miss adding this destination to their bucket lists; whether they are traveling for hours or days – Shoshone Falls is always worth exploring.

Wrong.

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If you travel from another state, or another country, to see the waterfalls, you want to come when they are roaring at full capacity. That time is not right now. Late spring and early summer can be great times to visit, but this year there just isn't a good flow yet. But there is a way to know before you go.

The City of Twin Falls knows that we want to see a roaring waterfall when we visit, so they have set up an online camera with a live video feed. This allows visitors the chance to check the waterfall before they head down to see it.

The Shoshone Falls are about 45 feet higher than Niagara Falls and around 900 feet wide. You can see in the live video feed that there is only water flowing from about 200 feet on the north side of the falls. It is still pretty, but it is nothing compared to this: