Broken Top from Green Lakes
— — a torn crown above still water.
Not only on a wall.
“Two alpine lakes held between South Sister and Broken Top, the eroded crown of an old stratovolcano. The trail in follows Fall Creek up through hemlock and lodgepole and opens at the meadow. Broken Top reads as a jagged silhouette across the upper lake, snow lingering in its couloirs into August. The water sits cold and glacial-green. Mosquito country in July; clearer by September. — from the studio
Broken Top from Green Lakes, 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.
Broken Top is a deeply eroded stratovolcano in the Three Sisters Wilderness of the central Oregon Cascades, with a summit at 9,177 feet. Green Lakes lies in the basin between Broken Top and South Sister, reached by the Green Lakes Trail off the Cascade Lakes Highway about thirty miles west of Bend. The standard hike is about nine miles round trip with roughly 1,100 feet of gain, climbing along Fall Creek before opening into the meadow basin. The wilderness is managed by Deschutes National Forest under the U.S. Forest Service.
The green of the lakes is glacial in origin. Rock flour, fine particles ground from basalt and andesite by the small remaining glaciers on Broken Top and South Sister, stays suspended in the meltwater and scatters short wavelengths back as a cool green. The colour deepens after a clear morning and goes flat under overcast skies. Lewis Glacier on South Sister and Crook Glacier in Broken Top's eroded crater are the feeders. Both have retreated significantly through the past century, tracked by the Cascades Volcano Observatory.
The trailhead sits at the Green Lakes / Soda Creek lot on the Cascade Lakes Highway, about thirty miles southwest of Bend. A Central Cascades Wilderness Permit is required for day hikes from late June through late October and must be reserved in advance through Recreation.gov. Snow lingers through much of June; the meadow opens by mid-July; mosquito pressure eases in late August. Camping is allowed at designated sites only, away from the lakeshore. Pack out everything, including food waste; black bears work the basin.