Wallowas function as "Oregon Alps"
— — granite peaks that the rest of the state forgets to mention.
Not only on a wall.
“The range people mean when they say Oregon Alps. Granite spires above Wallowa Lake, the Eagle Cap Wilderness behind them, the town of Joseph at the foot of the road. Sacajawea reads close to 9,800 feet from the south shore. The light off the cirques after a thunderstorm goes the colour of pewter, then back to blue. The Nez Perce called this country home for centuries before the road came in. from the studio
Wallowas function as "Oregon Alps", 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.
The Wallowa Mountains sit in the far northeast corner of Oregon, between the Wallowa Valley and the Snake River canyon. The range runs about forty miles, with Sacajawea Peak at 9,838 feet as the high point and the Matterhorn close behind. The Eagle Cap Wilderness, designated in 1964, protects more than 360,000 acres of granite, alpine lakes, and meadow. The town of Joseph and Wallowa Lake mark the standard entry from the north; the Hells Canyon rim sits a long drive east.
The Wallowas are an exposed batholith — granite that cooled deep underground and was lifted into view, then carved by Pleistocene glaciers into cirques, horns, and U-shaped valleys. The pale colour of the rock is what earns the Alps comparison. Wallowa Lake itself sits behind a textbook terminal moraine, the ridge the last glacier pushed up before retreating around 17,000 years ago. The Matterhorn, named for the obvious reason, exposes a band of limestone against the granite at its summit.
Most visitors come in through Joseph, a small town on Highway 82, and drive the six miles south to Wallowa Lake. The Wallowa Lake Tramway lifts visitors 3,700 feet to the summit of Mount Howard at 8,150 feet, the steepest vertical-rise gondola in North America when it opened in 1970. Trailheads at the south end of the lake feed the Eagle Cap Wilderness, with the most-walked routes climbing the West Fork of the Wallowa River toward Aneroid Lake and Ice Lake.