Triple Divide Peak: Montana’s unique liquid ‘crossroads’ where water can flow into three oceans
QUICK FACTS
Name: Triple-divided woodpecker
Location: Glacier National Park, Montana
Contact details : 48.5730, -113.5169
Why it’s amazing: The water at the top eventually flows into one of three oceans.
Triple Divide Peak is a mountain in Montana’s Glacier National Park where a drop of water could flow into one of three oceans: the Pacific, Atlantic, or Arctic Ocean.
Other Triple Divide Peaks – also known as “hydrological peaks” – exist around the world, but Triple Divide Peak is the only place on Earth that connects three oceans rather than three seas or a mixture of seas and oceans. However, some experts dispute this claim.
Snowmelt from the summit may spread westward through the Columbia River watershed and end up in the Pacific Ocean, or it may flow along the Missouri and Mississippi rivers and flow into the Atlantic, depending on the National Park Service. Alternatively, meltwater or raindrops landing on Triple Divide Peak may flow into Hudson Bay via the Saskatchewan River.
The International Hydrographic Organization considered Hudson Bay is part of the Arctic Ocean, so by this calculation, Triple Divide Peak feeds three separate oceans.
The summit is located on the continental watershed of North America, an imaginary line that crosses the Rocky Mountains and separates the major river systems that flow into the Pacific, Atlantic, and Arctic oceans. Triple Divide Peak is one of two hydrological peaks in the Continental Divide and North America, the other being Snow Dome in Canada.
Melt water from Snow Dome can flow into the Pacific Ocean via the Columbia River, into the Arctic Ocean via the Mackenzie River, or into Hudson Bay via the Nelson River. Some scientists argue that Hudson Bay is part of the Atlantic Ocean. in their opinionSnow Dome is the only triple divide on Earth that connects three oceans. For them, the water from Triple Divide Peak only flows into the Pacific or the Atlantic Ocean.
Triple Divide Peak and Snow Dome are also on other “great divides,” these divides demarcating different watersheds. In addition to the Continental Divide, Triple Divide Peak lies on the Laurentian Divide, which separates the Hudson Bay watershed to the north from the Gulf of Mexico watershed to the south. Snow Dome, on the other hand, lies on the Arctic Divide, which separates the Arctic Ocean watershed to the northwest from the Hudson Bay watershed to the southeast.
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