Union Pass

Amid a maze of mountain ranges and watercourses that sometimes baffled and repulsed them, aboriginal hunters, mountain men, fur traders, and far-ranging explorers each in turn found at Union Pass the key to a geographic conundrum. Here the Continental Divide is a tricky, triple phenomenon in which an unguided seeker of a crossing might find the right approach and still arrive at the wrong ending. Of North America’s seven river systems that are truly continental in scope, only in this vicinity and at one other place do as many as three head against a common divide. Indians called this region the Land of Many Rivers, and mountain men named the pass Union. Union Pass is surrounded by extensive ruling mountaintop terrain, with elevations between nine and ten thousand feet, where interspersed watercourses deceptively twist and turn as if undecided between an Atlantic or Pacific destination. This mountain expanse can be visualized as a rounded hub with the pass at its center, from which three spokes radiate into mighty mountain ranges: the Wind Rivers to the southeast, the Gros Ventres to the southwest, and the Absarokas to the north, extending far into Montana.

Wyoming · United States