Middle Miller River Falls

The East Fork Miller River harbors several essentially hidden waterfalls, many of which are considerably more significant than the landscape initially lets on. The middle of the three major falls below the Dorothy Lake trailhead is perhaps the most surprising of the group. Here, the river sluices through a narrow 150-foot long chute in the bedrock, dropping a total of 55 feet into a narrow trough with a deep green pool below. Despite the falls dropping at a significantly less-than-vertical angle, the volume of the river and the angle at which the water impacts the small pool at its base results in a surprisingly heavy volume of spray being ejected into the air around the gorge at the base of the falls, resulting in the ground all around the base of the falls being covered in a thick blanket of moss. The East Fork Miller River basin upstream of the falls covers an area of approximately 15 square miles, and includes the largest lakes in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness but harbors no permanent snow or ice. While the large basin and the numerous lakes which feed into it ensure that the river flows well all year long, its volume does decrease by as much as 80% from the peak flow in May and June to the low flow rates seen in August and September. Enough volume will be present at any time of year for the falls to present themselves acceptably however.