Pikes Peak Cog Railway summit Front Range Ceramic Art Tile
— — the air the song was written in.
Not only on a wall.
“The railway climbs nine miles from Manitou Springs to a summit that sits at 14,115 feet, the easternmost of Colorado's high peaks and the first thing the Front Range gives up to the sky. Katharine Lee Bates wrote "America the Beautiful" after reaching this summit in July 1893. The line "purple mountain majesties" came down with her. The Swiss-built trainsets that work the line now were ordered after a three-year rebuild; the grade still touches 25 percent on the steepest stretch. At the top, the donuts at the visitor center are mixed for the altitude. Almost everyone takes one outside to eat in the wind.
Pikes Peak Cog Railway summit Front 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.
Pikes Peak rises to 14,115 feet at the eastern edge of Colorado's Front Range, the first fourteen-thousand-foot summit a traveller meets coming west across the Great Plains. The Broadmoor Manitou and Pikes Peak Cog Railway carries riders 8.9 miles from a base in Manitou Springs to the summit, climbing 7,500 vertical feet on a track that touches a 25 percent grade. The mountain sits inside Pike National Forest, on land the Ute called Tava, the Sun Mountain. The line opened on 30 June 1891 and reopened in May 2021 after a three-year rebuild; the Swiss-built Stadler trainsets that run it now were ordered for the relaunch.
The summit sits at 14,115 feet, where atmospheric pressure is about 60 percent of what it is at sea level. The air is thinner, drier, and noticeably colder than at the base in Manitou Springs, which sits at 6,412 feet. Visitors are asked to slow their movement and drink water before they arrive; the donuts at the Summit Visitor Center are mixed with extra leavening to rise properly in the low pressure. On a clear day the view from the platform reaches across the Great Plains toward Kansas and southwest into the San Juan Mountains. Katharine Lee Bates wrote the verses that became "America the Beautiful" after reaching this summit in July 1893.
The railway runs from spring through autumn, with reservations strongly recommended; mid-summer departures sell out weeks ahead. A round trip takes about three hours and twenty minutes: roughly seventy minutes up, forty minutes on the summit, and seventy minutes back down. Tickets are timed and assigned to a specific train; the base depot is at 515 Ruxton Avenue in Manitou Springs, a few minutes' walk from the historic district. The summit itself can also be reached by the 19-mile Pikes Peak Highway or on foot via the Barr Trail, a 26-mile round trip climbing 7,400 feet from the same town. Weather at 14,000 feet shifts quickly; a warm layer is sensible even in July.