Convict Lake
— still water that holds the mountain twice.
Not only on a wall.
“A glacial lake in the eastern Sierra, three miles off Highway 395, with Mount Morrison rising about 4,400 feet straight out of the south shore. The name comes from a September day in 1871, when a posse caught up with escaped Carson City prisoners at the foot of the peak. A Wells Fargo agent named Robert Morrison was killed in the fight, and the mountain carries his name. In the morning, before the wind comes up, the water sits flat and the mountain goes twice.
Convict Lake, 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.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
The place, in three passes.
Convict Lake sits at 7,851 feet in Mono County, California, on the eastern flank of the Sierra Nevada, about seven miles south of Mammoth Lakes and three miles west of US Highway 395. The lake itself is small, under a mile long, fed by Convict Creek out of the upper basin. It holds against an outsized backdrop. Mount Morrison rises directly from the south shore to 12,241 feet, with Laurel Mountain and Sevehah Cliff completing the cirque. The basin is part of the Inyo National Forest, and the spur road dead-ends after two and a half miles at a small resort and the trailhead for the loop around the water.
The colour reads as deep slate-blue most mornings, a function of fine glacial sediment carried in by Convict Creek out of the upper basin. The water stays cold through summer, with surface temperatures rarely rising above the mid-fifties even in August. The tight cirque blocks most prevailing wind in the early hours, so the surface goes mirror-flat almost daily before nine in the morning. Mount Morrison's face is a 4,400-foot vertical of metasedimentary rock on the south shore, and it doubles in the lake with very little distortion. By mid-afternoon the wind comes up and the reflection breaks apart.
The road to the lake leaves US Highway 395 at the Convict Lake exit and dead-ends after two and a half miles at the resort and the public boat ramp. The loop trail around the water is just under three miles, mostly level, with a creek crossing on the far side that runs hard in early summer and easy by August. Convict Lake Resort, on the north shore, has cabins, a small store, boat rentals, and a restaurant. Trout season on the lake runs from the last Saturday in April through mid-November under California regulations. The road is plowed in winter, but the resort closes and the loop trail goes under snow.