Thor Peak
— — a cliff that hangs out over its own shadow.
Not only on a wall.
“The peak that holds the steepest sustained drop on Earth: 1,250 metres of granite leaning out past vertical above Akshayuk Pass, on Baffin Island in Nunavut. Mount Thor sits inside Auyuittuq National Park, where the Penny Ice Cap holds the watershed and the pass runs north between the fjords. Climbers come in by snowmobile from Pangnirtung in spring, or by hiking the pass in late July. Most travellers just stand under it, looking up.
Thor Peak, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Mount Thor stands at the southern end of Akshayuk Pass on Baffin Island, in Nunavut's Auyuittuq National Park, named for an Inuktitut word that translates as the land that never melts. The summit reaches 1,675 metres above sea level. The peak takes its English name from Norse mythology; the Inuktitut name for the valley is Akshayuk, after a respected local elder. Auyuittuq covers roughly 19,500 square kilometres of Arctic fjord, glacier and rock, with the Penny Ice Cap at its centre.
Thor's west face is a single sheet of granite that overhangs at an average angle of about 105 degrees, dropping 1,250 metres in a continuous run. Climbing guides list it as the greatest purely vertical drop on Earth. The first ascent was made in 1965 by an Alpine Club of Canada team led from Akron, Ohio, by way of the south face. The longest route on the overhanging wall took a team thirty-three days in 2006. The rock is grey Precambrian granite, polished by ice retreat.
Access to Auyuittuq is by way of Pangnirtung, the Inuit hamlet at the head of Cumberland Sound. From there, visitors travel by boat or snowmobile to the park boundary at Overlord and walk north up Akshayuk Pass. Mount Thor stands roughly 45 kilometres in. Parks Canada requires registration, an orientation session and a satellite communicator for any overnight trip. The park is open through the year, but the river crossings in the pass are passable only in late July and August, when the meltwater drops.