Yellowstone bison crossing the road
— the herd decides when the road opens.
Not only on a wall.
“A bison jam is the park's first lesson in scale. Three thousand pounds of animal, a few yards from the bumper, moving at the pace it wants. Engines off. Phones down. The herd crosses the Lamar or Hayden valley grasslands the way it has for ten thousand years, and the asphalt is the temporary thing. The road waits.
Yellowstone bison crossing the road, 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.
Yellowstone holds the largest free-roaming bison population in the United States, roughly 4,000 to 6,000 animals across the Hayden and Lamar valleys. It is the only herd in the country that has lived continuously in the wild since prehistoric times, never extirpated. The animals use the Grand Loop Road as a movement corridor, especially between Tower Junction and Canyon Village. The park sits primarily in northwest Wyoming, with smaller portions extending into Montana and Idaho.
Calving runs from mid-April through May, when reddish-orange calves known locally as red dogs appear beside their mothers. The rut peaks from mid-July into August, when bulls bellow and spar in the Hayden Valley. Winter pushes herds toward thermal basins where geothermal heat keeps grass exposed through deep snow. Summer brings the thickest jams; shoulder seasons let the herds read more clearly against the open sage.
Lamar Valley in the northeast and Hayden Valley in central Yellowstone are the two most reliable viewing corridors, both reached from the Grand Loop Road. Park rules require 25 yards of distance from bison at all times. Injuries average two to three per year, almost all from visitors who approached. Cell coverage is unreliable in both valleys. The north entrance at Gardiner is the only entrance open to wheeled vehicles year-round.