The Continental Divide of the U.S.

The Continental Divide of the Americas, or the Great Divide, runs though all of North America. This divide separates all the water that runs toward the Pacific Ocean from the water that runs toward the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans and the Gulf of Mexico. The Great Divide starts at Cape Prince of Wales in western Alaska. It runs through western Canada and the United States through the Rocky Mountains, then through the Sierra Madre Occidental mountains in Mexico. This particular section of the Continental Divide is found along the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail, a ten mile trail between Bakerville and Loveland. The Continental Divide of the Americas (also known as the Continental Gulf of Division, the Great Divide, or merely the Continental Divide) is the principal, and largely mountainous, hydrological divide of the Americas. The Continental Divide extends from the Bering Strait to the Strait of Magellan, and separates the watersheds that drain into the Pacific Ocean from (1) those river systems that drain into the Atlantic Ocean (including those that drain into the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea), and (2) along the northernmost reaches of the Divide, those river systems that drain into the Arctic Ocean. Though there are many other hydrological divides in the Americas, the Great Divide is by far the most prominent of these because it tends to follow a line of high peaks along the main ranges of the Rocky Mountains and Andes, at a generally much higher elevation than the other hydrological divisions.