Continental Divide of the Americas

Further south, the Divide forms the backbone of the Rocky Mountain Front (Front Range) in the Bob Marshall Wilderness, heads south towards Helena and Butte, then west past the namesake community of Divide, Montana, through the Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness to the Bitterroot Range, where it forms the eastern third of the state boundary between Idaho and Montana.

The Divide crosses into Wyoming within Yellowstone National Park and continues southeast around the Great Divide Basin, through the Sierra Madre Range into Colorado where it reaches its highest point in North America at the summit of Grays Peak at 4,352 metres (14,278 ft).

[citation needed] It crosses US Hwy 160 in southwestern Colorado at Wolf Creek Pass, where a line symbolizes the division.

In Mexico, it passes through Chihuahua, Durango, Zacatecas, Aguascalientes, Jalisco, Guanajuato, Querétaro, México, the Federal District, Morelos, Puebla, Oaxaca, and Chiapas.

The divide reaches its lowest natural point in Central America at the Isthmus of Rivas at 47 metres (154 ft) in Nicaragua.

The Divide continues into South America, where it follows the peaks of the Andes Mountains, traversing western Colombia, central Ecuador, western and southwestern Peru, and eastern Chile (essentially conforming to the Chile-Bolivia and Chile-Argentina boundaries), southward to Cabo San Diego at the southern end of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego.

[4] Discounting Antarctica and its ice sheets, only one other continent (Asia) borders three oceans, but the inward-draining Endorheic basin area of Central Asia from western China to the Aral and Caspian Seas is so vast that any Arctic and Indian Ocean tributaries are never within proximity of each other.

North America has five major drainage systems: into the Pacific, Atlantic and Arctic oceans, plus Hudson Bay and the Gulf of Mexico.

[12] Many endorheic regions in North and South America complicate the simple view of east or west, "ocean-bound" water flow.

However, the detailed USGS topographic maps of the United States generally show only the main Divide as determined by the overflow rule.

Several small lakes along the Divide in the Rocky Mountains between Alberta and British Columbia flow into both provinces and thus into both the Arctic and Pacific Oceans.

[a] The Alpine Club of Canada's Abbot Pass Hut sat directly astride the Divide in Abbot Pass on the boundary between Banff National Park and Yoho National Park, and thus precipitation falling on the eastern half of the roof flowed via Lake Louise into Hudson Bay, while rain falling on the western half flowed via Lake O'Hara into the Pacific Ocean.

The Continental Divide in North America in red and other drainage divides in North America
The Continental Divide in Central America and South America
The Continental Divide in the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains of north central Colorado , taken from the International Space Station in October 2008
Grays Peak , at 4,352 m (14,278 ft), is the highest point of the Continental Divide in North America .
The Treaty of 1818 used the Continental Divide as the eastern boundary of the Oregon Country , which was a United Kingdom - United States condominium until the Oregon Treaty of 1846 divided the area between Britain and the United States.
The Parting of the Waters in the Teton Wilderness, where one fork flows into the Pacific Ocean and the other flows into the Atlantic Ocean
The Continental Divide Trail often remains above the treeline and on the Divide, providing unobstructed views along its route.