Dana Point Waterfall

The Dana Point Waterfall (or Dana Point Falls) was something we weren’t really made aware of until recently when it popped up on one of the Orange County blogs.

Perhaps part of the reason why this place was so unknown to all but locals or those familiar with the Dana Point area was that this was a very temporary or ephemeral waterfall. In other words, if you weren’t here in the middle of a storm with heavy rainfall, you’re not likely to see this waterfall flow.

Julie experienced this firsthand when it was raining in Los Angeles County, but when she showed up to this part of southern Orange County about an hour or two after leaving home, the falls was merely trickling.

It wasn’t until two weeks later when we were here in the middle of a fairly nasty rain storm that resulted in lots of local street flooding and people hydroplaning on the freeways did we finally get to see this waterfall in a state that you can see in the photo at the top of this page!

And even if the falls wasn’t flowing, this little “oasis” was well-situated near the Dana Point Harbor beneath cliffs where expensive homes were perched above.

It was the kind of scene that we might have encountered further up the coast in Malibu, but here we were south of Laguna Beach in the scenic coastal suburb of Dana Point.

Visiting the Dana Point Waterfall

Visiting this waterfall was pretty straightforward as this was essentially a drive-to waterfall. It was right off the road across the street from a park on the harbor front.

The falls itself was fronted by palm trees with the whitish and brown cliffs adding to the scenic allure of this spot.

Yet even despite the lack of physical exertion required to experience the Dana Point Waterfall, we do have to reiterate the catch-22 nature of this excursion.

Indeed, in order to see this falls perform, the timing has to coincide with heavy rain, which means braving the accident-prone driving conditions on the freeways and local streets where the slippery conditions (especially with the hydroplaning) must be respected.

In addition to the bad driving conditions, the waterfall itself was composed of suburban runoff from the community above the cliff. Thus, the water would be bacteria-laced under stormy conditions, and we could certainly smell the refuse when we finally got to see this place in person.

Of course, under more benign conditions, the falls would be no more than a trickle. So you definitely have to take the good with the bad with this one.

Finally, given the ephemeral nature of the Dana Point Waterfall, I would marginally count this as a legitimate waterfall.

However, it was the scenic allure and oceanfront location that sort of gave this falls the benefit of the doubt. So instead of a 0.5 or lower score, we opted to bump the score of this falls up to 1. But as stated before, timing was everything with experiencing the spectacle of the falls.

Authorities

To my knowledge, the Dana Point Waterfall does not belong to a reserve or some kind of authority overseeing it. However, if you’re looking to do this excursion and want to inquire about current conditions, you might have some success asking the Dana Point City Hall. More information is available at their website, or you could just do a Google search.