McKenzie Pass Scenic Byway (lava field)
— — a road laid over a still-cooling sea.
Not only on a wall.
“Oregon Route 242 climbs out of the Douglas-fir and opens onto a black sea of lava with the Three Sisters standing in it. The Dee Wright Observatory was stacked out of the lava itself by a CCC crew in 1935, with sight-tubes aimed at each peak. The road closes under snow most of the year and reopens for a short summer. People stop, walk a few hundred yards on the Lava River Trail, and go quiet. — from the studio
McKenzie Pass Scenic Byway (lava field), 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.
McKenzie Pass crosses the Cascade Range on Oregon Route 242 at 5,325 feet, between the McKenzie River drainage and the high desert around Sisters. The summit sits in one of the largest exposed lava fields in the lower forty-eight, the youngest flows from Belknap Crater and Yapoah Cone laid down roughly 1,500 to 3,000 years ago. The Dee Wright Observatory, a small stone tower built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1935 from the surrounding basalt, stands at the high point with view-tubes aimed at the named peaks.
The basalt underfoot is young by geological standards. Belknap Crater and the Yapoah Cone fed the most recent flows, and the rock is still sharp enough to cut a hand that braces a fall. The Dee Wright Observatory was stacked from the same stone, with eleven sight-tubes set into the masonry pointing to Mount Washington, Mount Jefferson, North Sister, Middle Sister, and the rest of the visible Cascade chain. The CCC finished the work in 1935 and a bronze peak-finder was set on the roof platform two years later.
The pass is closed by snow most of the year. Oregon Department of Transportation typically opens OR-242 in late June or July and closes the gates again with the first heavy snow in November. The road is narrow, with no centreline through the lava, and is signed against vehicles over 35 feet. The Lava River Trail at the observatory is paved for a half-mile loop. The McKenzie Pass-Santiam Pass Scenic Byway, designated by the Federal Highway Administration in 1998, ties the pass into a roughly 82-mile loop with OR-126 and US-20.