Ellery Lake
— a held blue at the edge of the pass.
Not only on a wall.
“A small alpine lake on the road over Tioga Pass, just east of where California 120 enters Yosemite. The water comes off the snow above Mount Dana, held by a small dam on Lee Vining Creek and run for hydroelectric power since the 1920s. The road is closed for most of the year; from early November into June the lake belongs to the snow. When the gate opens in late spring, the water reads as a cold mineral blue against pale granite. A small Forest Service campground sits at the south end. Most travellers pass through on the way over the pass; a few stop and fish.
Ellery 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.
Ellery Lake is a small reservoir on Lee Vining Creek in Mono County, California, at 9,489 feet (2,892 m) on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada. It sits beside California Highway 120, the Tioga Road, less than a mile east of the Tioga Pass entrance to Yosemite National Park and about ten miles west of the town of Lee Vining and Mono Lake. The lake was created by a small concrete dam built in the 1920s as part of the Lee Vining Creek hydroelectric system, now operated by Southern California Edison. The surrounding land is managed by the Inyo National Forest, which runs a small first-come campground at the south end of the lake.
The water in Ellery Lake comes off the snowfields of the Yosemite high country, draining down Lee Vining Creek from the granite shoulder of Mount Dana (13,061 ft / 3,981 m) and the lakes of the Dana Plateau. The lake is small and shallow enough to freeze solid each winter. In summer, after the meltwater settles, the colour reads as a cold mineral blue against the pale granite of the surrounding shore. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife stocks Ellery with rainbow trout each year; it is among the most-fished roadside alpine lakes on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada, drawing anglers from the moment the Tioga Road opens.
The road to Ellery Lake closes for most of the year. California 120 over Tioga Pass is the highest paved trans-Sierra route, cresting at 9,943 feet, and Caltrans typically keeps it closed from early November through May or June, depending on the snowpack. Some years the gate does not open until July. When the road clears, the corridor between Lee Vining and the Tioga Pass entrance station is one of the busier stretches of highway in Inyo National Forest. The Ellery Lake Campground at the south end runs from after snowmelt through September on a first-come, first-served basis. The lake sits about half a mile outside the Yosemite boundary, so no park entrance fee is needed to reach it.