Lake Isa, Which Breaks All the Rules of Geography (8 photos)

The Lake Isa lookout is located approximately 12 kilometers east of Old Faithful Geyser on the Grand Loop. And at first glance, there's nothing particularly remarkable about it.





Just a narrow strip of water, overgrown with water lilies and littered with fallen tree trunks. Nearby is a "Continental Divide" sign and an information board.



But it is here that nature has created one of its most elegant mysteries. The fact is that the rivers and lakes on one side of the watershed flow into one ocean, and on the other, into another.





Lake Isa lies directly on a line at an elevation of over 2,500 meters, at the high points of two major drainage systems in America: the Snake and Columbia Rivers on one side, and the Missouri and Mississippi on the other.



The lake has two outlets. The eastern outlet leads to the Lewis River, then to the Snake and Columbia Rivers, and from there to the Pacific Ocean. The western side feeds the Firehole River, which, via the Missouri and Mississippi, reaches the Gulf of Mexico (and therefore the Atlantic Ocean).



That is, water from the eastern side (where the Atlantic would logically flow) flows west, and from the western side, east. The lake flows the other way around.



Lake Isa is one of the very few natural lakes in the world that drains into two oceans (along with Lake Wollaston in Canada). Because of this, it is called Two-Ocean Lake.



The lake has no tributary rivers. It is fed exclusively by melting snow. For most of the year, the water here barely moves, and only in the spring, during the floods, does the Isa fully reveal its paradox.