Mount Bachelor from Sparks Lake
— — a shallow lake holding a whole mountain.
Not only on a wall.
“Sparks Lake spreads in a shallow lava basin off the Cascade Lakes Highway, with Mount Bachelor rising 9,068 feet over its eastern shore. The lake has no surface outlet; the water drains down through the porous lava beneath. Mornings come in glass-still and the mountain doubles itself on the water. The Oregon landscape photographer Ray Atkeson worked this view often enough that his ashes were scattered nearby in 1990. — from the studio
Mount Bachelor from Sparks Lake, 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.
Sparks Lake sits at about 5,439 feet in the Deschutes National Forest, on the Cascade Lakes Scenic Byway roughly 26 miles southwest of Bend. The lake was formed when lava flows from Mount Bachelor and the nearby Kwohl Butte dammed a glacial valley; it is shallow, marshy at the margins, and has no surface outlet, with water draining down through the porous basalt. Mount Bachelor rises directly to the east, a 9,068-foot stratovolcano whose summit lies on the Cascade crest.
The lake covers roughly 400 acres at full pool and is shallow enough across most of its area to wade, with extensive emergent meadow at the inflow. Because the basin sits on permeable lava, water levels drop noticeably through the summer as the lake leaks downward into the regional aquifer; by September the southern arm often shows mud flats. The water is cold enough year-round to hold a native population of cutthroat trout. The lake is fly-fishing-only and open to non-motorised boats.
The classic photograph of this place is taken at first light from the north shore, with Mount Bachelor reflected in glass-still water and the basalt boulders along the foreground. Ray Atkeson, named Oregon's official photographer laureate in 1987, returned to this composition for decades; his ashes were scattered near the lake after his death in 1990, and a memorial point on the north shore now carries his name. Mornings in July and August are the most reliable for still water; afternoon thermals usually put a chop on the surface by ten.