By Brad Harter
To the best of my knowledge, the most remote and maybe the most unusual National Monument in the lower 48 states is found in Wyoming. It is called Parting of the Waters. This National Monument is located in the Bridger-Teton Wilderness on the Continental Divide on Two Ocean’s Pass, about 20 miles from the nearest trailhead.
I always believed that every drop of rainwater that did not go into the ground and ended up in a creek, stream, river, or lake somehow eventually found its way to the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans. I have learned that isn’t always the case, as some of that water ends up in large basins that don’t empty anywhere, never being able to get to one of those two oceans.
But that is not the case for Two Ocean Creek flowing on the Continental Divide on a pass called Two Ocean’s Pass. That small stream, which you can see in the pictures accompanying this story, is pretty small so that in certain spots you can almost jump over it. But at the exact location of this National Monument, that small creek splits into two separate creeks. If you are facing that split, the creek to the right is now called Pacific Creek, and the one to the left is called Atlantic Creek.
The Pacific Creek flows down the west side of the divide and eventually flows into the Snake River, which then flows south towards the base of the Grand Tetons and onward flowing into the Columbia River, eventually emptying into the Pacific Ocean for a distance of 1,353 miles. Atlantic Creek has a much longer journey to the Atlantic Ocean. It first flows into the Yellowstone River, then northward to Yellowstone Lake, and then on a very long journey through three states, where the Yellowstone eventually empties into the Missouri River in North Dakota. The Missouri River empties into the Mississippi River, which then empties into the Gulf and the Atlantic Ocean for a total distance of 3,448 miles.
I have been told that this may be the only place in North America where a body of water splits, emptying into both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Over more than 20 years of taking hundreds of students on wilderness pack trips and work projects for the U.S. Forest Service, we always take the time to visit this very special National Monument just a short distance off the main trail when we are heading north towards Bridger Lake.
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