A natural waterway across the Great Divide

Many visitors to Glacier National Park are familiar with Triple Divide Peak, on the Continental Divide west of the Cutbank Campground.

Three creeks that begin atop the 7,397-foot high peak include Atlantic Creek, which flows to the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, and Pacific Creek, which flows to the Pacific Ocean by way of the Flathead and Columbia rivers.

A third creek with its source on Triple Divide Peak is Hudson Bay Creek, which flows north and eventually reaches Hudson Bay, which technically is part of the Atlantic Ocean but is far enough north that some say it constitutes a third ocean, the Arctic. Hence the name Triple Divide.

A well-maintained trail starting at the Cutbank Campground reaches Triple Divide Pass in about 7.2 miles and 2,380 feet, essentially climbing steadily up without switchbacks along the south side of 9,375-foot high Mount James.

Climbers who want to reach the top of Triple Divide Peak don’t have far to go from where the trail crosses the pass. Just head south several hundred feet on goat ledges and ascend the Class 3 gullies several hundred feet to the summit.

The uniqueness of the peak’s watershed has drawn a lot of attention over the years, but a little known site in Wyoming’s Teton Wilderness called Parting of the Waters has its own bragging rights — it could be argued that the site in the Bridger-Teton National Forest is a natural waterway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

That was what many early explorers to the New World were searching for all along, from Henry Hudson in 1609 to Lewis and Clark in 1804 — a way to get ships from Europe to Asia without sailing all the way around Africa or South America.

Parting of the Waters, however, isn’t deep enough for sailing ships the size of Henry Hudson’s or the pirogues hauled up the Missouri River by the Corps of Discovery Expedition.

The unusual hydrologic site begins as a single creek on Two Ocean Plateau, 9,240 feet above sea level, which flows north to the marshy Two Ocean Pass. North Two Ocean Creek then divides into two equally-sized creeks at the pass — Pacific Creek flows 1,353 miles to the Pacific Ocean by way of the Snake and Columbia rivers, and Atlantic Creek flows 3,488 miles to the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Yellowstone, Missouri and Mississippi rivers.

What makes this possible is an unusual bifurcation of the Continental Divide. Instead of a narrow rocky ridge, like Glacier Park’s Garden Wall near Logan Pass, the divide splits into two features that completely surround North Two Ocean and South Two Ocean creeks.

Hikers who want to visit this unusual site could be looking at a 40-mile round-trip loop hike after paddling 20 miles round-trip across Yellowstone Lake. Elevation gain is minimal. It’s best done in summer and fall.