Trail Ridge byway sunset Rocky Mountain National Park Ceramic Art Tile
— — the hour the tundra keeps the colour.
Not only on a wall.
“The highest continuous paved road in North America. Forty-eight miles between Estes Park and Grand Lake, crossing the Continental Divide at Milner Pass. Eleven miles of it run above 11,500 feet through alpine tundra, the same plant community that grows north of the Arctic Circle. Closed by snow most of the year; open from Memorial Day to mid-October if the weather holds. Late in the day the light arrives nearly unfiltered up here. The sun drops behind the Never Summer Mountains and the tundra holds the colour, brown to copper to violet, while the Mummy Range to the north stays warm a little longer.
Trail Ridge byway sunset 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.
Trail Ridge Road is U.S. Highway 34 through Rocky Mountain National Park in north-central Colorado. The 48-mile route runs between the town of Estes Park on the east side and Grand Lake on the west, crossing the Continental Divide at Milner Pass at 10,758 feet. Construction began in 1929 and the road opened in 1932, replacing Old Fall River Road as the main park crossing. The high point sits at 12,183 feet, the highest continuous paved road in North America, with about eleven miles of the route running above treeline through alpine tundra. The Alpine Visitor Center near Fall River Pass sits at 11,796 feet.
At 12,000 feet the atmosphere is thin enough that the late light arrives nearly unfiltered. There is little dust, less moisture than in the valleys below, and almost no vegetation to absorb it. The bare ridgelines and alpine tundra hold colour for several minutes after the sun drops behind the Never Summer Mountains and the Continental Divide peaks to the west. The Mummy Range to the north, lit at a low angle, stays warm a little longer. Photographers favour the high overlooks: Rock Cut, the Gore Range Overlook, the Lava Cliffs. In summer the sun sets around 8:30 in the evening; by late September it is gone by 7.
Trail Ridge Road is the highest seasonally closed highway in the United States. The National Park Service typically opens the road around Memorial Day weekend in late May, depending on plow progress through the season's snowpack, and closes it by mid-October when winter storms set in. Snow falls at this elevation in every month of the year, and the road can close on short notice for high wind, lightning, or whiteout. The most settled stretch falls between July and early September. By late September the aspens below treeline turn gold and the tundra grasses go copper, two or three weeks before the road closes for the season.