Loch Vale Rocky Mountain National Park Ceramic Art Tile
— — still water under the cathedral wall.
Not only on a wall.
“A small subalpine lake at about ten thousand feet, set in a cirque the mountains lean over. Reached from the Glacier Gorge Trailhead, about 2.7 miles up, past Alberta Falls and through the spruce and limber pine where the trail steepens. The water carries the dark green of glacial silt. The Cathedral Wall comes straight up out of it on the south side. Mornings before the wind picks up, the surface holds the peaks. Hikers continue another mile to Lake of Glass and Sky Pond, but plenty of people stop at The Loch, sit on the granite slabs, and don't go further.
Loch Vale 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.
The Loch sits at 10,180 feet (3,103 m) in Rocky Mountain National Park, in the Glacier Gorge drainage on the east side of the Continental Divide. The hike begins at the Glacier Gorge Trailhead off Bear Lake Road, west of Estes Park in Larimer County, Colorado. The route climbs roughly 1,000 feet over 2.7 miles, passing Alberta Falls and forking left at the Loch Vale junction above Mills Creek. The lake drains via Icy Brook into Glacier Creek. The cirque is held by Taylor Peak and Thatchtop, with the Cathedral Wall rising to the south, and Lake of Glass and Sky Pond set another mile higher up the canyon.
The Loch is reliably accessible from late June through early October. Snowpack lingers on the upper trail through May and often into June, and the lake itself can stay partially frozen until July in heavy-snow years. Late September brings the limber pine and the lower aspen near Glacier Gorge into colour. The first hard snow typically arrives in October, and by mid-November the trail above Alberta Falls is winter terrain that requires traction. Afternoon thunderstorms build over the Continental Divide on most July and August days, usually starting around 1 p.m.; the National Park Service advises being off ridges by noon.
Rocky Mountain National Park requires a timed-entry permit for the Bear Lake Road corridor from late May through mid-October, and that corridor includes the Glacier Gorge Trailhead. Permits release on Recreation.gov roughly one month in advance, with a smaller next-day window at 7 p.m. mountain time. The trailhead lot fills well before sunrise on summer weekends; a free shuttle runs from the Park-and-Ride to Bear Lake. The round trip to The Loch is about 5.4 miles with around 1,000 feet of elevation gain, generally rated moderate. The park entrance fee is separate from the timed-entry reservation.