Horseshoe Park elk meadow Rocky Mountain National Park Ceramic Art Tile
— — first light, the herd back in the bend.
Not only on a wall.
“A U-shaped meadow carved by a glacier fifteen thousand years ago. The Fall River bends through it, and twice a day in autumn the elk come down at dawn and again at dusk, bulls bugling across the grass to hold their harems. In spring the meadow belongs to bighorn sheep, descending from the ridge to lick mineral mud at Sheep Lakes. The Old Fall River Road begins at the western end; the Alluvial Fan, scoured open by the 1982 Lawn Lake flood, holds the eastern edge. Most of the year the place is quiet: wind, water, a few cars pulled off the shoulder.
Horseshoe Park elk meadow Rocky Mountain National Park 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.
Horseshoe Park is a flat U-shaped valley at 8,524 feet, carved by a glacier roughly 500 feet thick that retreated about 15,000 years ago, leaving lateral moraines and the meadow that now holds the Fall River's slow bend. It sits in Larimer County, in the eastern half of Rocky Mountain National Park, a few miles west of the Fall River Entrance Station and about five miles from the gateway town of Estes Park. The Old Fall River Road climbs out of its western end toward the Alpine Visitor Center at 11,796 feet; Trail Ridge Road runs the high ridgeline above. Sheep Lakes, two small kettle ponds at 8,650 feet, sit inside the meadow.
From May through mid-August, bighorn sheep descend the ridges above Sheep Lakes to lick mineral-rich mud, usually between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. By mid-September the meadow belongs to elk: for about a month the bulls bugle across the grass at dawn and at dusk to hold their harems through the rut. The grass goes bronze, the aspens above Endovalley turn, and the first night-snow usually finds the herd still out there. By November the elk move down toward Estes Park, Trail Ridge Road closes for winter, and the meadow holds nothing but cold wind and tracks.
Rocky Mountain National Park requires a timed-entry reservation in the summer high season; outside that window, a standard park pass is enough. During the autumn rut, the meadows in Horseshoe Park close to foot traffic from 5 p.m. to 10 a.m. between September 1 and October 31, so the elk are not crowded; viewing happens from the pullouts along U.S. 34 and the Sheep Lakes lot. Park rules require visitors to keep at least 75 feet from any elk or bighorn (about the length of two school buses). Old Fall River Road, a one-way gravel climb that begins at the western end of the meadow, is open only July through September.