Orcas Island Mount Constitution view
— the day the whole archipelago shows up.
Not only on a wall.
“The summit of Orcas Island, the highest point in the San Juan archipelago at 2,409 feet. On a clear morning Mount Baker rises east across the Strait of Georgia, Mount Rainier south through the Cascade haze, and the Olympic range west beyond Puget Sound. The sandstone observation tower at the top was built in 1936 by Civilian Conservation Corps crews, modelled on twelfth-century Caucasus watchtowers. Most visitors drive the six paved miles up from Moran State Park; the climb on foot follows the Cold Springs Trail through old-growth Douglas fir.
Orcas Island Mount Constitution view, 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.
Mount Constitution rises to 2,409 feet (734 metres) at the centre of Orcas Island, the largest of the San Juan Islands in northwest Washington. It is the highest summit in the archipelago and forms the spine of Moran State Park, the second-oldest state park in Washington, established in 1921 from a 5,200-acre donation by Seattle shipbuilder Robert Moran. The summit is reached by a paved six-mile road that climbs from the park entrance, or on foot via the Cold Springs and Mountain Lake trails. On a clear day the view takes in Mount Baker, Mount Rainier, the North Cascades, the Olympic Peninsula, and the southern Gulf Islands of British Columbia.
The observation tower at the summit was completed in 1936 by Civilian Conservation Corps crews using sandstone quarried on the mountain itself. The architect, Ellsworth Storey of Seattle, modelled it on twelfth-century watchtowers from the Caucasus: a four-storey square keep with arrow-slit windows and a stone-flagged observation deck. The tower stands roughly 52 feet tall and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The interior holds a small interpretive display about the CCC and about Robert Moran, whose 1921 donation of the surrounding land created the park. The tower is open during regular park hours; the climb to the top deck is sixty-three steps.
On the clearest days the view from Mount Constitution covers five mountain ranges at once. Mount Baker rises 10,781 feet to the east, about 70 miles distant across the Strait of Georgia. Mount Rainier, at 14,411 feet, sits roughly 130 miles south through the Cascades. The Olympic range crosses the southwest horizon beyond Puget Sound. To the north, the Coast Mountains of British Columbia close the view above the Gulf Islands. Marine air from the Pacific keeps the visibility cleanest in the hours after a front passes, typically in early autumn, when the haze of summer wildfire smoke has dropped out and the winter overcast has not yet settled in.