
A Wyoming Creek Flows into Two Oceans (2017) - DoreenMichele
https://www.cntraveler.com/story/this-wyoming-creek-flows-into-two-oceans
======
cjensen
There's a creek like this in Banff National Park in Canada [1]. It is
amazingly fake. It was rebuilt when I was younger and the rocks that keep the
creek in place are not found upstream or downstream of the divide. Before it
was rebuilt, it flowed into a marshy area and trickled off to both sides. My
guess is that it was originally constructed by the railroad (which is right
next to it) as a tourist attraction when crossing the divide.

The problem with a divide creek is that it is inherently unstable. One of the
sides _will_ erode more quickly than the other, which diverts the water and
erodes the remaining side to permanently capture the water.

I note that photos of the Wyoming creek show a suspicious number of rocks in
perfect place diverting some water off to the lesser branch. Perhaps someone
has been fighting off the inevitable end of the fork.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divide_Creek](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divide_Creek)

~~~
username223
Maybe someone has been hiking out there to maintain the creek, but that's some
serious middle-of-nowhere territory, so I doubt it. Also, it's depicted as a
big flat marsh on the USGS 7.5' maps, so I imagine it doesn't experience much
erosion.

~~~
mannykannot
It is a day's hike from the roadhead, on an established trail, and at the
point of the split, the water flows freely. The run-off from a single storm
could be enough to close off one branch, and if left to its own devices, this
fork would probably open and close repeatedly before settling on one
direction.

Pics and more info: [http://www.amusingplanet.com/2014/09/parting-of-waters-
creek...](http://www.amusingplanet.com/2014/09/parting-of-waters-creek-that-
flows-into.html)

~~~
username223
Thanks! That website is a JavaScript-soaked nightmare, but I'll try to check
it out when I'm next in the area (and maybe even do some creek maintenance
;-).

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eigenvector
There is also a "triple divide" point in North America, from where water can
flow into the Pacific, Atlantic or Arctic Oceans. It's either in Montana or
Jasper National Park in Canada depending on whether you define Hudson Bay as
part of the Arctic or Atlantic.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_Divide_Peak_(Montana)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_Divide_Peak_\(Montana\))
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Dome_(Canada)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Dome_\(Canada\))

~~~
severine
Similar to "Pico Tres Mares" (Three Seas Peak), in Spain:

> The Pico de Tres Mares (Three Seas) got its name because it is the source of
> three main rivers which flow from it into three different seas - the Híjar,
> tributary of the Ebro which flows into the Mediterranean, the Pisuerga,
> tributary of the Douro which flows into the Atlantic and the Nansa which
> flows into the Cantabrian sea. This peak, which rises to 2,175m, reveals a
> splendid circular panorama to the north of the Nansa, to the east of the
> Sierra de Peña Labra and the Montes de León, and to the west of los Picos de
> Europa.

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chrissnell
So, if you were a salmon, you could swim up from the Pacific and back down to
the Atlantic--theoretically. Is there anywhere else you could do that?

There are some really long salmon runs in Idaho. The Salmon River is one of
the longest, I believe. Fish travel several thousand miles up it to spawn in
their home creek.

~~~
discreteevent
That's an impressive feat of endurance considering that salmon seem to eat
very little (if at all) in fresh water.

[http://salmo.proboards.com/thread/39/salmon-eat-fresh-
water](http://salmo.proboards.com/thread/39/salmon-eat-fresh-water)

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bencollier49
"All the explorers looking for the Northwest Passage between the oceans never
realized that they could have sailed across America this way—if they'd used
tiny little boats that could handle the six-inch shallows of Two Ocean Creek."

Is anyone going to take that as a challenge? And video it?

~~~
saalweachter
I wonder how navigable it is - you _are_ paddling up a mountain; I imagine
there’s a few spots you’ll need to carry the boat around rapids/falls.

~~~
bencollier49
I was thinking more of a sort of robotrout with leaping abilities..

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cbr
This means everywhere uphill from this creek can't be assigned to a watershed,
or we can't model watersheds as a tree. My guess is water modeling software
can't handle this situation.

(Cases where an elegant model covers almost everything but not quite are
frustratingly common.)

~~~
mannykannot
I think only if watersheds are required to terminate on an ocean, but that
does not work for basins that are not connected to the sea, one notable
example of which is not that far south of this point, containing the Great
Salt lake. An alternative view (touched on in the article) is that
technically, the fork is the end-point of the Atlantic-Pacific divide, and
everything upstream on this creek is in a watershed that has one end on one
branch downstream of the fork, and the other end on the other branch. In this
view, it is the paths downstream of the fork that are not in a watershed. This
is not a useful viewpoint, so I agree that this is a corner case in which the
tree model does not work.

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niftich
Also in Wyoming is the Great Divide Basin, an endorheic basin straddling the
Pacific-Atlantic Continental Divide.

In a not-to-distant past it probably drained out northeast towards the North
Platte [1], but is now a closed basin with about 43 meters of elevation
separation before it would overflow at bedrock. Further complicating this is a
bunch of sand dunes over its most likely outflow.

[1]
[http://geofaculty.uwyo.edu/heller/Papers/Heller%20GSAB%2010....](http://geofaculty.uwyo.edu/heller/Papers/Heller%20GSAB%2010.pdf)

~~~
Theodores
Nice, I found that to be most fascinating on Rand McNally maps from back in
the day. I cycled past the Great Divide Basin on the road down from the
Tetons, through the Snake River canyons and the view did not disappoint. High
points on the divide were attracting lightning on a near continual basis from
the late afternoon onward and it was quite a light show.

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205guy
Other instances:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_drainage_sys...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_drainage_systems)

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burger_moon
That was a really interesting tidbit of information.

I was also caught a bit off guard by the website, cntraveler. I only ever
heard of conde nast as the company that used to own reddit. The author's name
was also interesting as it's the same as the famous Jeopardy winner, which
this being a quirky trivia type of article makes me wonder if it's the same
person.

~~~
rflrob
It is the Jeopardy winner. As a hint, in most online publications you can
click on the authors name and it will take you to a bio and/or a list of other
articles by that author in that publication.

~~~
Latteland
It's always amusing to read articles "from the future". The byline date is May
1, 2018. Perfect for a super human like Ken.

~~~
sulam
Apparently it’s been corrected to 2017.

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cup-of-tea
For some reason on Firefox mobile as soon as I load this page I get a drop
down at the top with my search history.

~~~
contingencies
Ditto, Firefox desktop Linux. I suspect it's javascript selecting an input box
with a very common _name_ like _q_ or _search_.

~~~
dghf
Likewise, Chromium on Linux. Search box appears when I try to scroll with the
down-arrow key.

