Purgatory Resort San Juans Ceramic Art Tile
— the snow the San Juans hold from October to April.
Not only on a wall.
“A ski mountain on US Highway 550, twenty-five miles north of Durango, where the road climbs out of the Animas valley toward Silverton. The summit sits at 10,822 feet, high enough that the snow that arrives in late October is still around in April. The name comes from a creek above the river the Spanish called Las Animas Perdidas, the river of lost souls; a settler in the 1800s shortened it to Purgatory and it stuck. Two thousand feet of vertical, two hundred and sixty inches of snow in an average year. Off-season the chairlift still runs, with wildflowers on the open slopes and the high country quiet.
Purgatory Resort San Juans 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.
Purgatory Resort sits in the San Juan Mountains of southwest Colorado, twenty-five miles north of Durango along US Highway 550, the section of the San Juan Skyway that climbs toward Silverton. The base lodge is at 8,793 feet; the summit reaches 10,822 feet, with a vertical drop of 2,029 feet over roughly 1,500 skiable acres. The resort occupies inholdings within the San Juan National Forest. It was founded in 1965 by Chester Anderson, a U.S. Forest Service ranger, and Ray Duncan, a Denver oilman, who opened it as Purgatory Ski Area. The name was traded for Durango Mountain Resort in 2000 and restored in 2015 after a sale to James Coleman.
The mountain averages 260 inches of natural snowfall each winter, with the season opening in late November and running into early April depending on conditions. The San Juans hold their snowpack longer than most Colorado ranges because the storms that reach this corner of the state often come from the southwest and stall against the high country south of Silverton. Snowmaking covers roughly a fifth of the terrain at lower elevations; the upper bowls rely on what the weather gives them. In a strong year the back trails carry skiable snow into mid-April. The shoulder seasons are quiet, with late October before the lifts spin and late April and May while the high meadows are still wet.
Purgatory's twelve lifts include a six-person high-speed and two quad detachables, serving 105 named trails and five terrain parks across the front and back of the mountain. The drive from Durango climbs steadily for about forty minutes. From the north, the route comes down US 550 past Silverton along the San Juan Skyway, a designated All-American Road. Summer operations run from late May through early October, when the main chairlift carries hikers and bikers to the summit. The Inferno Mountain Coaster, an alpine slide, and paddleboards on Twilight Lake fill out the warm-season program. The ticket office prefers advance bookings, and seasonal closures are posted on the resort site.