Lamar Valley wolf pack
— — the grey line moving along the far bench.
Not only on a wall.
“A broad glacial valley in the northeast corner of Yellowstone, walked by bison through every season and watched at dawn by people with spotting scopes set up along the road. Wolves were returned to the park in 1995, and the Lamar packs are among the most studied wild canids on earth. Most mornings the watchers find them by the ravens first. The light here arrives slow and lateral, and the valley holds it. — from the studio
Lamar Valley wolf pack, 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 Lamar Valley runs east-west through Yellowstone's northeast quarter, drained by the Lamar River from headwaters near the Absaroka divide. The valley floor sits near 6,500 feet, walled by glacial benches and the high peaks of the Absaroka Range to the north and south. The Northeast Entrance Road, US-212, crosses the valley between the Tower-Roosevelt junction and Cooke City, Montana. The valley supports one of the largest concentrations of grazing megafauna in the lower forty-eight, including bison, elk, pronghorn, and bighorn sheep.
Grey wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone in 1995 after a sixty-year absence, with the first releases in the Lamar Valley. Packs here, including the long-studied Junction Butte pack, have been tracked continuously by Yellowstone Wolf Project biologists for three decades. Watchers gather before dawn at the Slough Creek and Hitching Post pullouts with spotting scopes. The valley is large and quiet enough that a person can stand on the road and hear ravens at a kill a mile across the bench, and the wolves themselves on cold mornings.
The valley is reached by the Northeast Entrance Road, which is plowed and open year round, the only road in Yellowstone with that distinction. Wildlife watching is best within an hour of sunrise and sunset; midday traffic and warm light push animals into cover. The nearest services are at the small gateway towns of Silver Gate and Cooke City, Montana, a few miles east of the park boundary. The National Park Service asks visitors to stay one hundred yards from wolves and bears at all times.