Paradise Valley along the Yellowstone
— — a valley the river still owns.
Not only on a wall.
“Fifty miles of river between the Absaroka Range and the Gallatin, running north out of Yellowstone toward Livingston. The Yellowstone is one of the longest undammed rivers left in the lower forty-eight, and Paradise Valley is the stretch where it leaves the park and remembers it was wild. Drift boats in the morning, elk in the cottonwoods by evening. — from the studio
Paradise Valley along the Yellowstone, 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.
Paradise Valley runs roughly 50 miles north from Yellowstone National Park's North Entrance at Gardiner up to the town of Livingston, where the Yellowstone River swings east and leaves the mountains. The valley sits between the Absaroka Range to the east, which crests above 11,000 feet at Emigrant Peak, and the Gallatin Range to the west. U.S. Highway 89 traces the river along the western bench. Park County, Montana, holds the whole length. The river itself runs 692 miles in total and is the longest undammed river in the contiguous United States.
The Yellowstone leaves the park at about 5,300 feet and drops gently across Paradise Valley, gathering Mill Creek, Mol Heron Creek, and the East and West Boulder before reaching Livingston. The river holds wild rainbow, brown, and Yellowstone cutthroat trout and is one of the most-floated trout rivers in the West; spring runoff peaks in June, and the fall blue-wing olive hatch carries through October. Chico Hot Springs sits on the valley's east bench, a working geothermal resort since 1900 and a long-standing waypoint for drift-boat anglers coming off the water.
Winter in Paradise Valley brings down the elk and the bighorn from the high country; Yankee Jim Canyon, the river's narrow gate just north of Gardiner, often holds bald eagles through January. Spring runoff turns the water heavy and brown into early June. July and August are the fishing months and the storm months — the valley funnels weather off the Gallatin Range and afternoon thunderheads build fast above Emigrant Peak. By late September the cottonwoods along the river turn yellow and the elk rut moves down out of the park.