Beartooth Lake with Pilot Peak and Index Peak
— — two stone teeth above a held blue.
Not only on a wall.
“An alpine lake at about 8,900 feet on the Beartooth Plateau, set under the twin profiles of Pilot Peak and Index Peak. The shoreline is short and stony, and a small Forest Service campground sits at the north end. Pilot is the sharp horn rising to 11,708 feet; Index is the shouldered block beside it. The lake holds rainbow, brook, and a few cutthroat trout. Locals on US 212 know it as the pull-off where everyone with a camera stops. Mornings before the wind comes up are the still ones. — from the studio
Beartooth Lake with Pilot Peak and Index Peak, 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.
Beartooth Lake lies just south of the Montana–Wyoming line, in the Shoshone National Forest, reached by a short spur off US 212. The water sits at roughly 8,900 feet on the Beartooth Plateau. Above it rise Pilot Peak at 11,708 feet and Index Peak at 11,313 feet, two of the most recognised summits in the Absaroka Range. The Forest Service operates the Beartooth Lake Campground at the north end and a boat ramp suited to small craft. The lake's outlet runs into Beartooth Creek, which joins the Clarks Fork of the Yellowstone downstream.
The lake holds rainbow trout stocked by Wyoming Game and Fish, naturally reproducing brook trout, and a thinner population of Yellowstone cutthroat. The surface freezes by November and stays under ice into May. In open water the lake fishes best in the first hour after dawn and the last hour before dark, when the wind drops off the plateau and the surface goes flat. The boat ramp is rated for small craft only; the prevailing afternoon wind off Pilot Peak builds whitecaps quickly on a lake this exposed.
Access runs from late May through mid-October, the same season as the Beartooth Highway. The campground holds 21 sites and is first-come, first-served at the start and end of the season, with reservations available through Recreation.gov in peak months. Day-use parking is free at the picnic area. The shoreline trail circles part of the lake in under a mile and connects to longer routes into the Beartooth Lakes Basin. Bear spray is recommended; both black and grizzly bears use the surrounding drainages.