Clark Fork
Clark Fork is a mapped river in the YearMaps hydrographic index. River courses organise settlement, agriculture and frontier-making more durably than any political boundary, and this reach is indexed against the dams, lakes and cities within its catchment.
- Feature Class
- River
- Coordinates
- 47.03°, -114.33°
About Clark Fork
The Clark Fork, or the Clark Fork of the Columbia River, is a river in the U.S. states of Montana and Idaho, approximately 310 miles (500 km) long. It is named after William Clark of the 1806 Lewis and Clark Expedition. The largest river by volume in Montana, it drains an extensive region of the Rocky Mountains in western Montana and northern Idaho in the watershed of the Columbia River. The river flows northwest through a long valley at the base of the Cabinet Mountains and empties into Lake Pend Oreille in the Idaho Panhandle. The Pend Oreille River in Idaho, Washington, and British Columbia, which drains the lake to the Columbia in British Columbia, is sometimes included as part of the Clark Fork, giving it a total length of 479 miles (771 km), with a drainage area of 25,820 square miles (66,900 km2). In its upper 20 miles (32 km) in Montana near Butte, it is known as Silver Bow Creek. Interstate 90 follows much of the upper course of the river from Butte to Saint Regis. The highest point within the river's watershed is Mount Evans at 10,641 feet (3,243 m) in Deer Lodge County, Montana.
Encyclopedic summary adapted from Wikipedia: Clark Fork River (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Clark Fork in Depth
History
During the last ice age, from approximately 20,000 years ago, the Clark Fork Valley lay along the southern edge of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet covering western North America. The encroachment of the ice sheet formed an ice dam on the river, creating Glacial Lake Missoula, which stretched through the Clark Fork Valley across central Montana. The periodic rupturing and rebuilding of the ice dam released the Missoula Floods, a series of catastrophic floods down the Clark Fork and Pend Oreille into the Columbia, which sculpted many of the geographic features of eastern Washington and the Willamette Valley of Oregon.
In the 19th century, the Clark Fork Valley was inhabited by the Flathead tribe of Native Americans.
Description
It rises as Silver Bow Creek in southwestern Montana, less than 5 miles (8.0 km) from the Continental Divide near downtown Butte, from the confluence of Basin and Blacktail creeks. It flows northwest and north through a valley in the mountains, passing east of Anaconda, where it changes its name to the Clark Fork at the confluence with Warm Springs Creek, then northwest to Deer Lodge. Near Deer Lodge it receives the Little Blackfoot River. From Deer Lodge it flows generally northwest across western Montana, passing south of the Garnet Range toward Missoula. Five miles east of Missoula, the river receives the Blackfoot River.
Northwest of Missoula, the river continues through a long valley along the northeast flank of the Bitterroot Range, through the Lolo National Forest.
Sections adapted from Wikipedia: Clark Fork River (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Clark Fork: Key Facts
| Length | 499 km |
|---|---|
| Average discharge | 621 m³/s |
| Drainage basin | 59,324 km² |
| Mouth | Lake Pend Oreille |
| Drainage system | Pend Oreille River basin |
| Tributaries | Flathead River, Bitterroot River, Blackfoot River, Thompson River, Little Blackfoot River, Bull River |
Facts from Wikidata Q664874 (CC0).
Major River Dossiers
Hand-written studies of the great river systems of history.
Connected Reaches
Nearby watercourses in the same drainage network.
Water Bodies in the Catchment
Settlements Along the Reach
Hydraulic Infrastructure Nearby
Surrounding Terrain
Clark Fork: Quick Answers
- Where is Clark Fork?
- Clark Fork is located in United States, at 47.0332° N, 114.3307° W.
- Are there dams on the Clark Fork?
- No dam on the Clark Fork is recorded in the YearMaps dam index, which covers major structures only.