Cascade larches and vine maples are the autumn hooks; the volcano reflections are
— the three weeks the mountains change colour.
Not only on a wall.
“In the Washington Cascades the autumn shows up on two slopes at once. Western larch and alpine larch turn gold on the drier eastern side, through the Enchantments, the Stehekin valley, and the slopes above Lake Wenatchee, for roughly three weeks in October. Vine maple turns red and orange in the wet western forests along the Mountain Loop Highway and the Cascade River Road. And the volcanoes (Rainier, Baker, Glacier Peak, Adams) sit reflected in still alpine lakes when the wind drops. Picture Lake at the foot of Mount Shuksan, Tipsoo Lake at Chinook Pass, Reflection Lakes on Rainier's south side.
Cascade larches and vine maples are the autumn hooks; the volcano reflections are, 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 Cascade Range crosses Washington north-to-south for more than 200 miles, from the Canadian border at Mount Baker to the Columbia River at Mount Adams. The crest forms a steep rainshadow line: western slopes catch Pacific moisture, eastern slopes run dry. Four major active volcanoes anchor the Washington section: Mount Baker, Glacier Peak, Mount Rainier, and Mount Adams. A fifth, the truncated cone of Mount St. Helens, sits on the southern flank and remains the most recently erupted, in 1980. The autumn colour show happens across both sides at once: vine maple in the western rainforest understory and larch on the eastern slopes from valley floor up to timberline.
The larch turn comes once a year and runs short. Alpine larch (Larix lyallii) and western larch (Larix occidentalis) shift from green to gold across roughly the first three weeks of October on the east side, depending on elevation and the year's first cold nights. Vine maple (Acer circinatum) on the western slope colours through late September and into October. Reflective windows on the alpine lakes, such as Reflection Lakes on Rainier, Picture Lake at the foot of Mount Shuksan, and Tipsoo Lake at Chinook Pass, depend on still mornings before the autumn storm track sets in, usually by early November.
Larch needles photosynthesize from spring through summer; in autumn the chlorophyll breaks down and the carotenoids beneath show through as a deep gold. They are the only North American conifers that shed their needles every year. Vine maple anthocyanins, by contrast, develop in autumn in response to cold nights and sunlight, so the reds dominate where vine maple grows in clearings and the oranges and yellows hold under canopy. The volcanoes pick up alpenglow before and after sunrise, sitting cold above the line of changing forest. The combination of gold conifer, red understory, and white cone is specific to the inland Pacific Northwest in October.