Grand Canyon National Park
— — the cut the river kept making.
Not only on a wall.
“Two hundred and seventy-seven miles of river, a mile of vertical, an ocean of sedimentary time. The South Rim stays open through the year and most of the canyon's visitors see it from there: Mather Point, Hopi Point, Desert View at dusk. The North Rim, two thousand feet higher, closes in winter. The Colorado runs cold and silt-brown a mile below.
Grand Canyon National Park, 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.
The place, in three passes.
Grand Canyon National Park protects 1,902 square miles of northern Arizona along the Colorado River. The canyon itself is 277 river miles long, up to 18 miles wide, and reaches a mile deep at its deepest point. The South Rim sits at about 7,000 feet and stays open through the year; the North Rim, at about 8,000 feet, closes from mid-October to mid-May. Congress established the park in 1919 and UNESCO inscribed it as a World Heritage Site in 1979.
The canyon is a colour record of two billion years of stone. Morning light catches the Coconino sandstone in pale gold; late afternoon turns the Redwall limestone the orange it is named for; the inner gorge, Vishnu Schist at the river, holds shadow long after the rims are lit. The best hour is the one before sunset from Hopi or Desert View: the cliffs across the canyon take the last of the light and the air goes blue.
The South Rim is reached by Highway 64 from Williams or Cameron and stays open every day of the year. A free shuttle runs along Hermit Road from March through November. The North Rim opens May 15 and closes for snow in mid-October; the drive from the South Rim takes about five hours by road. Permits are required for any overnight trip below the rim, and they fill months in advance. Summer afternoons routinely cross 100°F in the inner canyon.