Three Waters Mountain

Southwest rises a mountain with a lyrical name suited to a geographical phenomenon: midway along its four-mile crest lies one of only two points in North America where as many as three of the continent's seven major watersheds interlock. At this key point, a raindrop can split into thirds and follow continuously diverging channels toward three different seas, with one part reaching the Gulf of Mexico by way of Jakeys Fork, Wind River, Bighorn, Yellowstone, Missouri, and Mississippi, another going to the Pacific through Fish Creek, the Gros Ventres, Snake, and Columbia, and the last descending to the Gulf of California via Roaring Fork, Green River, and the Colorado. The mountain apparently was not named by Indians or fur trappers and was locally called Triple Divide Peak, but on the Geological Survey's 1906 map only a benchmark and divide lines identified it; the Survey's 1968 map, correcting the benchmark elevation and officially applying the name Three Waters Mountain to this long crest descending northwest from the 13,800-foot glacier-clad peaks at the heart of the Wind River Range, reflected the imagination of a later cartographer in the tradition of Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden and the assistants who helped found the United States Geological Survey in 1879.

Wyoming · United States