Cottonwood Pass paved summit Sawatch Range Ceramic Art Tile
— — the road climbs until the trees give up.
Not only on a wall.
“One of the highest paved roads in the country. The summit pull-off sits at 12,126 feet on the Continental Divide. The east side climbs out of Buena Vista in the Arkansas valley; the west side drops to Taylor Park. Snow closes the road from late autumn to late spring, so the season is short. At the saddle the trees have already stopped, and the wind carries the rest. People pull over without saying much, walk a few steps to the edge, and look both ways.
Cottonwood Pass paved summit Sawatch Range Ceramic Art Tile, 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.
Cottonwood Pass crosses the Continental Divide at 12,126 feet, one of the highest paved roads in the United States. It connects Buena Vista in Chaffee County to Taylor Park in Gunnison County, climbing about 4,200 feet from the floor of the Arkansas River valley to the saddle. The road is Chaffee County Road 306 on the east and Gunnison County Road 209 on the west; the west side was paved in 2019, after decades as a gravel route. The pass sits in the Sawatch Range, alongside Mount Yale and Mount Princeton, two of the fourteeners that make up the Collegiate Peaks.
The summit sits a good 700 feet above the local treeline. The Sawatch tundra at this altitude is mostly low cushion plants: alpine forget-me-not, moss campion, sky pilot, flattened by the wind that runs the spine of the Divide. Air pressure at 12,126 feet is roughly two thirds of sea-level, which is what makes the walk from the parking pull-off feel longer than fifty yards. Storms build fast over the Collegiate Peaks; the National Weather Service guidance for the Sawatch is to be off the high points by noon in summer. Most days, the wind is the loudest thing on the saddle.
The pass closes for winter; gates at both ends drop sometime in November and stay shut until snow clears enough to plow safely, usually in late May. Chaffee and Gunnison counties coordinate the opening each spring. Once it opens, the summer window is short: through-traffic from Buena Vista to Taylor Park runs from late May to early November, with the wildflower bloom at the highest meadows hitting mid-July into early August. The aspen on the lower flanks turn the third week of September. The road carries no fee and no permit; the closures are the only schedule that matters.