Coronado Trail
— a hundred and twenty miles of slow curves and pine.
Not only on a wall.
Coronado Trail, 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.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
“The Coronado Trail follows U.S. 191 north from Clifton through the Apache-Sitgreaves forests to Springerville. It climbs from copper-country desert to ponderosa and aspen, crossing the White Mountains near Hannagan Meadow at over nine thousand feet. The road is narrow, often without striping, and one of the least-driven federal highways in the lower forty-eight.
The place, in three passes.
The Coronado Trail is the section of U.S. Route 191 between Clifton and Springerville, Arizona, roughly 123 miles long and rising from about 3,500 feet near the copper mines to over 9,100 feet at Blue Vista overlook. The route crosses Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests and parts of the Fort Apache Indian Reservation. The road is loosely named for Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, whose 1540 expedition is thought to have passed through the broader region. Federal Highway counts make it one of the least-trafficked U.S. highways.
The climb passes through five life zones in about a hundred miles. The lower switchbacks above Morenci sit in Sonoran semi-desert; the road climbs through pinyon-juniper, ponderosa pine, mixed conifer, and finally spruce-fir near Blue Vista. Hannagan Meadow at roughly 9,100 feet holds aspen stands that turn gold in late September. Black bear, elk, and Mexican gray wolves reintroduced in 1998 to the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area move through these forests, the only place in Arizona where the lobo runs free.
The route is paved end to end but narrow, with more than 450 curves and few guardrails on the alpine section. The Forest Service recommends four to five hours of driving without stops; most travellers spread it over a day. Fuel and food are sparse north of Morenci until Alpine, near mile 96. Hannagan Meadow Lodge, open since 1926, sits roughly mid-route. The road can close briefly for snow between December and March; the summer monsoon brings afternoon thunderstorms.
