Lone Pine Creek

There are two waterfalls in the vicinity of the Mt. Whitney Portal Campground. The larger, taller one, with about 150 feet of cascade, is known by various names, including Portal Falls, Whitney Portal Falls, and Lone Pine Creek Falls. It's catalogued in the World Waterfall Database under the name Portal Falls. This is not that waterfall.

Closer to the Portal Store is a smaller cascade, also apparently fed by Lone Pine Creek but, as near as I can tell, unnamed, perhaps even unloved. This image is of that smaller fall, illuminated by the bright morning light streaming through the trees.

Two waterfalls share the drainage at the Mt. Whitney Portal: the famous one — 150 feet of cascade, catalogued in the World Waterfall Database under the names Portal Falls, Whitney Portal Falls, and Lone Pine Creek Falls — and this one, which has none of those credentials. The smaller fall sits closer to the Portal Store, fed by the same Lone Pine Creek, unnamed as far as anyone seems to have bothered to determine. It is the waterfall that most visitors to the Portal walk past on their way to something larger. The morning light streaming through the trees found it before they did.