Lamar Valley bison herd (Montana side)
— — a herd moving the way weather moves.
Not only on a wall.
“A wide grass valley walled by the Absaroka Mountains, cut by the Lamar River, grazed by one of the few free-roaming bison herds left on the continent. The road enters from Silver Gate and Cooke City on the Montana side, then drops into the valley floor. Animals cross when they cross. Traffic stops. The herd carries on, the way a slow front carries on. — from the studio
Lamar Valley bison herd (Montana side), 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.
Lamar Valley is a broad glacial valley in the northeast corner of Yellowstone National Park, cut by the Lamar River and walled on either side by the Absaroka Range. The valley sits at roughly 6,500 feet of elevation. The Northeast Entrance Road runs the length of it, entering the park at Silver Gate and Cooke City on the Montana border and joining the Grand Loop Road at Tower Junction. The valley is named for L. Q. C. Lamar, U.S. Secretary of the Interior in 1885, and is sometimes called America's Serengeti for the density of large mammals on the open grassland.
The Northern Yellowstone bison herd numbers in the low thousands, ranges across the Lamar and Hayden valleys, and is one of the few American bison populations descended from the herd that survived the late nineteenth century rather than from cattle crossbreeding. Cows and calves stay together year-round; bulls join during the late-July to mid-August rut, when the valley fills with deep bellowing and grass-flattening sparring matches. In winter the herd drifts to lower elevations along the Lamar and Yellowstone rivers and sometimes onto land bordering Gardiner, Montana, where management agreements with the state apply.
The Northeast Entrance at Silver Gate and Cooke City is open all year, while the higher Beartooth Highway from Red Lodge is seasonal, generally late May through early October. Early morning and the hour before sunset are the best windows for animal viewing, when bison, pronghorn, elk, and occasionally wolves move on the valley floor. Pullouts line the road. The Park Service requires a minimum 25 yards of distance from bison and 100 yards from wolves and bears. Cell service through the valley is essentially nonexistent, which most visitors come to appreciate.