Shell Canyon Falls
— — a creek that drops out of the mountain in one breath.
Not only on a wall.
“Shell Creek falls about 120 feet through a narrow slot of pink granite on the west flank of the Bighorn Mountains. The pull-off sits a few hundred yards from the highway, with a short paved walk to an overlook. The granite around the falls runs back nearly three billion years, some of the oldest exposed rock in North America. The water sounds bigger than it looks. — from the studio
Shell Canyon Falls, 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.
Shell Canyon cuts the western flank of the Bighorn Mountains in north-central Wyoming, with US Highway 14 climbing the canyon from the small ranching community of Shell up toward Burgess Junction. The falls sit roughly fifteen miles east of Shell, on Bighorn National Forest land managed by the U.S. Forest Service. A visitor center at the overlook has interpretive panels and seasonal staff. Shell Creek runs year-round, fed by snowmelt and high-country springs, and the canyon walls climb close to 1,000 feet above the creek bed in places.
The canyon exposes some of the oldest rock in North America. The pink and grey granite around the falls dates to roughly 2.9 billion years, basement rock of the continent, lifted by the Laramide uplift that built the Bighorns 70 million years ago. Above the granite, layers of Cambrian and younger sedimentary stone show in the upper canyon walls, a textbook section that geology students from the University of Wyoming have come to read for decades. The water has cut a narrow slot through the hardest rock, which is why the falls are vertical rather than tiered.
The overlook is free, paved, and wheelchair-accessible, about 200 yards from the highway pull-off and the Shell Falls Interpretive Site. The Forest Service operates the small visitor center from late spring through early fall, with restrooms and water on site. US-14 stays open year-round but is heavily used by trucks crossing the Bighorns, so the pull-off can be busy in midsummer. Best photography is mid-morning when the sun lights the pink granite from the south. Stay behind the railings; the slot above the falls is steep and slick.