There it separates the catchment areas of its four major drainage systems into an eastern and a western region: The Lauter, referred to in its upper reaches as the Wieslauter, the Queich and the Speyerbach flow eastwards, directly into the Upper Rhine; the Schwarzbach collects the water from the western Palatine Forest and sends it via the Blies, Saar and Moselle rivers to the Middle Rhine.
Always generally running from southwest to northeast it initially heads eastwards past Eppenbrunn and Pirmasens over the Großer Schiffelskopf (457 m) and reaches the region of Gräfenstein Land.
In the first, more usually accepted case, the watershed is identical with that of the Schwarzbach and its headstreams (especially the Moosalb, Rodalb, Wallhalb and Hornbach) with the Nahe tributary of the Glan.
On the Sickingen Heights it runs close to its northern edge to the Saarland border at Homburg.
[1] In the more rarely postulated second case, the watershed runs from the Lower Frankenweide onwards in a northeasterly, later more northerly direction.