Spouting Rock Hanging Lake Ceramic Art Tile
— — water out of the rock, into the green.
Not only on a wall.
“A turquoise lake held on a travertine shelf high above Glenwood Canyon, with a waterfall above it that comes out of a hole in the cliff. The waterfall is called Spouting Rock. The path up is short and very steep, a mile and a bit, gaining about a thousand feet from the Interstate. The colour comes from carbonate minerals the water is laying down as it travels. The lake bed is slowly building itself, layer by layer. A boardwalk keeps feet off the travertine. People talk low when they get to the top.
Spouting Rock Hanging Lake 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.
Hanging Lake sits on a travertine shelf in Glenwood Canyon, in the White River National Forest of western Colorado, roughly seven miles east of Glenwood Springs along Interstate 70. The lake's elevation is about 7,323 feet (2,232 m), perched roughly a thousand feet above the Colorado River that runs through the canyon below. The trail begins at the rest area off I-70 Exit 125 and climbs about 1.2 miles to the lake. Spouting Rock, the karst spring waterfall, sits a short scramble higher again. The U.S. National Park Service designated the area a National Natural Landmark in 2011, recognising the active travertine geology that continues to build the lake bed and rim.
The colour of Hanging Lake comes from dissolved carbonate minerals. Snowmelt and groundwater pick up calcium carbonate as they travel through the surrounding limestone of Glenwood Canyon, then release it as travertine when they meet the lake. The lake bed and rim are still building, layer by slow layer. The boardwalk and the no-touching rule exist because the formation is fragile and still active. Spouting Rock above the lake is a karst spring, where water moving through a network of underground conduits emerges as a single jet from a hole in the cliff face. The same geology that built the lake feeds the spring.
A permit is required to hike to Hanging Lake during the main season, managed by Visit Glenwood Springs in cooperation with the U.S. Forest Service. Reservations are timed and limit the number of people on the trail each day to protect the travertine formation. The hike is short but strenuous, about 1.2 miles one way with roughly 1,000 feet of elevation gain. The lake itself is reached by a boardwalk; swimming, fishing, and walking on the lake bed are prohibited. The Grizzly Creek Fire of 2020 and the 2021 debris flows damaged the trail, which was rebuilt and reopened after extensive repair.