Union Pass

Union Pass. . At this pass--midst a maze of mountain ranges and water courses which has sometime baffled and repulsed them--aboriginal hunters, mountain men, fur traders and far-ranging explorers have, each in his time, found the key to a geographic conundrum. For them that conundrum had been a far more perplexing problem than such an ordinary task as negotiating the crossing, however torturous, of an unexplored pass occurring along the uncomplicated divide of an unconnected mountain chain. , Hereabouts the Continental Divide is a tricky, triple phenomenon wherein the unguided seeker of a crossing might find the right approach and still arrive at the wrong ending. In North America there are seven river systems that can be cited as truly continental in scope but only in this vicinity and at one other place do as many as three of them head against a common divide. Indians called this region the Land of Many Rivers and mountain men named the pass Union, thereby both--once again--proving themselves gifted practitioners of nomenclature. , Union Pass is surrounded by an extensive, ruling, mountain-top terrain wherein elevations vary between nine and ten thousand feet and interspersed water courses deceptively twist and turn as if undetermined betwixt an Atlantic or a Pacific destination. This mountain expanse might be visualized as a rounded hub in the center of which, like an axle's spindle, fits the pass. Out from this hub radiate three spokes, each one climbing and broadening into mighty mountain ranges--southeasterly the Wind Rivers, southwesterly the Gros Ventres and northerly, extending far into Montana, the Absarokas. . This historical marker was erected by National Forest Service. It is Near Dubois in Fremont County Wyoming