Mount Massive long ridge Sawatch Range Ceramic Art Tile
— a ridge that takes all afternoon to walk.
Not only on a wall.
“The second-tallest mountain in Colorado, and the one Hayden's survey named for its bulk. Across the Arkansas valley from Leadville, the ridge goes on for over three miles above fourteen thousand feet, with five distinct summits along it. Mount Elbert, twelve feet taller, is the headline; Massive is the longer story. People who walk the standard East Slopes route describe a long false-summit grind followed by an hour of ridge-walking among the highest country in the Rockies. Snow holds in the cirques until July. Marmots watch the passing of every party.
Mount Massive long ridge 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.
Mount Massive is the second-highest peak in the Rocky Mountains south of Canada at 14,428 feet, twelve feet shy of neighbouring Mount Elbert. It stands in the Sawatch Range of central Colorado, the spine that holds fifteen of the state's fifty-three named fourteen-thousand-foot peaks. The summit is in the Mount Massive Wilderness, a 30,540-acre protected area within San Isabel National Forest, established in 1980. Leadville, the highest incorporated city in the United States at 10,152 feet, sits across the upper Arkansas River valley to the east. The Hayden Survey gave the mountain its name in 1873, choosing the word for the broad mass of summit ridge that distinguishes it from the more conical peaks around it.
At 14,428 feet, the summit holds less than sixty percent of the oxygen available at sea level. The standard East Slopes Trail from the Mount Massive Trailhead climbs about 4,500 feet over roughly thirteen and a half miles round trip, and the final ridge sits entirely above 14,000 feet. What sets Mount Massive apart from every other Colorado fourteener is the length of that ridge: more than three miles of summit running above the elevation contour, with five distinct summits along its spine. The peak has the greatest total area above fourteen thousand feet of any mountain in the contiguous United States, a fact that lives in the walk more than in the photograph.
The standard climbing window runs from late June through September, when the East Slopes Trail is generally clear of snow and the afternoon thunderstorms hold off until early afternoon. Most parties leave the Mount Massive Trailhead before sunrise to be off the summit by noon. The trailhead is about a dozen miles southwest of Leadville on Halfmoon Creek Road, accessible by passenger car in summer. There is no fee. The standard East Slopes route is rated Class 2, meaning steep but non-technical scrambling, and takes most hikers between eight and twelve hours. The ridge traverse to the four sub-summits is Class 2+ and adds several more hours; few parties attempt the whole ridge in a single day.