Continental Divide: South Pass & Pacific Springs

"Sometimes we felt a reverence for all this, especially when we came to the summit of the Rocky Mountains.  We were there on the Fourth of July and the climate celebrated it -- not with fireworks but with a storm right from the North Pole by way of Spitzbergen.  It cut like a knife, it seemed sleeted and was so bitter cold that we had to wrap ourselves in blankets to keep from freezing.  We could not have a fire so we had no hot coffee or tea to brave the climate, but we stopt long enough to inspect the spring right on the summit of the mountain which ebbs and flows like the ocean."

This is how Elizabeth Drusilla Robinson Smith, sister of my ancestor's wife, described their journey through South Pass and Pacific Springs, Wyoming.  Today, driving along Highway 28 at the top of the world, the scenery is sweeping -- as is the wind which practically ripped the car door from its hinge as I got out and which pushed me about as I attempted to photograph the sign at the Continental Divide, elevation 7,750'.  To the north in the snow covered Wind River range, I could see a roaring stampede of clouds and a dark curtain of rain racing towards me, towards South Pass and Pacific Springs, just as it did on the Fourth of July in 1849....

Incoming storm...

"We are now within a few miles of the summit of South Pass.  The Wind River mountains lay cold and silent off to our right.  The country appears like high rolling prairie." Franklin Starr, June 27, 1849

South Pass was the Way West.  The only way.  The only corridor through the Rockies between Atlantic and Pacific "without any toilsome ascents" as John C. Fremont described it.  No toil?  Hmmm...  On the other hand, the passageway is smooth enough:

South Pass, the Continental Divide

Emigrants were poignantly aware of the Continental Divide, both physically and emotionally.  

"After every shower [at South Pass] the little rivulets separate, some to flow into the Atlantic, the others into the Pacific."  Margaret Frink, June 24, 1850

"The ascent is so gradual that the culminating point is a matter of doubt....In a musing mood, I ascended  a high hill opposite our camp, to take a parting look at the Atlantic waters, which flowed towards all I hold most dear on earth."  Alonzo Delano, 1849

South Pass also marked other Divides.  Now the emigrants faced the the second half of their journey.  Gently rolling prairies and flowing rivers were no more.  The roughest travel --through mountains and alkali deserts and yet more mountains -- was yet to come.