Diamond Lake with Mount Thielsen
— — the spire the lightning aims for.
Not only on a wall.
“A wide lake at fifty-two hundred feet between two peaks: Mount Bailey to the west, Mount Thielsen's broken spire to the east. Highway 138 runs the north shore on the way to Crater Lake. Mornings start dead-flat for the trout boats; afternoons bring a wind off the ridges. Thielsen's summit is hit by lightning so often the rock at the top is fused into a glassy mineral the climbers call fulgurite. from the studio
Diamond Lake with Mount Thielsen, 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.
Diamond Lake is a natural lake of about three thousand acres in the southern Oregon Cascades, sitting at roughly 5,190 feet in the Umpqua National Forest. It lies in a glacially carved basin between Mount Bailey to the west and Mount Thielsen to the east, and drains north into Lemolo Lake on the upper North Umpqua River. Oregon Route 138 runs the north shore between Roseburg and the north entrance of Crater Lake National Park, fifteen miles south.
Mount Thielsen rises to 9,184 feet on the lake's east side, an eroded shield volcano whose softer flanks have been stripped by glaciers to leave a sharp summit pinnacle. The peak is struck by lightning often enough that climbers find fulgurite, a glassy mineral formed when lightning fuses silicate rock, on its summit blocks; this is the source of the long-standing local name, the lightning rod of the Cascades. The standard climbing route goes Class 4 on the final summit pitch.
Diamond Lake Resort on the south shore is open year-round; Forest Service campgrounds around the lake open from late May through October, depending on snow. Summer activity centres on trout fishing, with rainbow stocking by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. Winter brings groomed Nordic trails and snowcat skiing on Mount Bailey. The Pacific Crest Trail crosses the area just east of the lake, climbing across Thielsen's lower west slopes between Crater Lake and Windigo Pass.