Warner Point western rim Black Canyon NP Ceramic Art Tile
— — the longest look into the dark.
Not only on a wall.
“The end of the South Rim Drive in western Colorado, where the road runs out and a short trail through pinyon and juniper reaches the canyon's widest view. The Black Canyon is called black because the walls are so close and so tall that sunlight finds the river for only a few minutes a day. From Warner Point the canyon shows its whole length: the Painted Wall to the east, the Gunnison's descent to the plateau in the west, the San Juans south, the West Elks north. The minister who campaigned to protect it walked here in the 1920s. The shadow has not moved.
Warner Point western rim Black Canyon NP 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.
Warner Point sits at the western end of South Rim Drive in Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, in western Colorado. The park is about 15 miles east of Montrose, the nearest town. A 1.5-mile round-trip nature trail leaves the High Point parking area and runs through pinyon, juniper, mountain mahogany, and serviceberry to a small east-facing overlook at 8,302 feet. The drop to the Gunnison River below is roughly 2,600 feet, one of the widest vertical sightlines anywhere in the park. The South Rim Road typically closes from November through April; in those months access is by ski, snowshoe, or a long walk in from the closed gate.
The canyon is called black because so little sunlight reaches the river at the bottom. On the shortest winter days the deepest sections of the inner gorge receive only about thirty-three minutes of direct sun. The Painted Wall, the tallest cliff in Colorado at 2,250 feet, stands upstream from Warner Point and turns a slow rose colour late in the afternoon as the light leaves it. From the western overlook the shadow line moves visibly across the morning. The Gunnison has been cutting the schist and gneiss of these walls for roughly two million years, though the rock itself is Precambrian, more than 1.7 billion years old.
South Rim Road typically closes after the first heavy snow in November and reopens in mid-April, weather depending. The Warner Point trail is most pleasant from late May through October. June brings serviceberry bloom and wildflowers on the rim; late September turns the cottonwoods along the river two thousand feet below. Mornings before nine bring the deepest contrast across the inner walls, and the canyon's widest view tends to flatten in midday light. The trail itself is short, roughly an hour round trip, but the rim sits above 8,300 feet, and visitors arriving from lower elevations often feel the altitude on the climb back.