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Some rivers have been moving backwards. This got me thinking about an unusual idea.

Could there be terrain that causes two rivers, within a few miles of each other (10?), to flow in opposite directions? One flows east, the other flows west, passing each other by.

Is there anything like this on Earth already? Is it even possible?

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    $\begingroup$ Like the question, but what do you mean by "some rivers have been moving backwards"? $\endgroup$
    – JeopardyTempest
    Jan 7, 2018 at 19:30

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One of my favorites: The Columbia and Kootenay rivers. The Kootenay River initially flows southeast, parallel to the initial northwest flow of the Columbia River. The Kootenay passes within 2 kilometers of Columbia Lake, the source of the Columbia.

Map showing the Kootenay and Columbia rivers
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kootenay_River_Map.png

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    $\begingroup$ Even better is that both rivers have a stretch where they're flowing pretty much parallel to themselves :-) $\endgroup$
    – jamesqf
    Jan 7, 2018 at 19:20
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    $\begingroup$ @jamesqf - Even better, both rivers eventually make close to 180 degree turns, and better yet, they eventually join. $\endgroup$
    – David Hammen
    Jan 7, 2018 at 20:02
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    $\begingroup$ The Duncan River doesn't hurt the entertaining nature of this either, almost continuing the alternating pattern. $\endgroup$
    – JeopardyTempest
    Jan 8, 2018 at 0:14
  • $\begingroup$ Bonus for them being in the same drainage basin :-) $\endgroup$
    – Semidiurnal Simon
    Jan 14, 2018 at 16:08
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After about a minute of searching in what I thought was a likely place, here is an example from northern England.

enter image description here

All you need is two valleys draining in opposite directions, which is not really a particularly interesting or uncommon occurrence.

Note the grid squares are 1 km x 1 km so these are pretty close.

Here's a bigger example I found from southern Greece. The two valleys are about 4 km apart in this example. The basic topographic setup is exactly the same as the previous example.

enter image description here

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