Cave Lake State Park
— a small lake the desert hides on purpose.
Not only on a wall.
Cave Lake State Park, 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.
“Cave Lake holds about thirty-two acres of cold water at 7,300 feet, tucked into the Schell Creek Range a dozen miles southeast of Ely. The reservoir was built in the 1930s and stocked with rainbow and brown trout; the trout, in turn, brought the fishermen and the cabins and eventually the state park. In winter the lake freezes thick enough to host the Fire and Ice festival, with ice sculptures and a chili cook-off. The rest of the year it sits quietly under bristlecone-studded ridges, almost empty on weekdays. from the studio
The place, in three passes.
Cave Lake State Park sits about 15 miles southeast of Ely in White Pine County, Nevada, on the western flank of the Schell Creek Range at roughly 7,300 feet of elevation. The lake itself is a 32-acre reservoir formed by a small dam on Cave Creek, originally built in the 1930s for irrigation and later opened for recreation. The park covers about 1,240 acres of pinyon-juniper and aspen, rising into stands of limber and bristlecone pine on the higher ridges. It is one of Nevada's smaller state parks and one of its highest.
Cave Lake works in two seasons. From May through October the reservoir is open for fishing, paddling, and small-boat use; Nevada Department of Wildlife stocks it with rainbow trout and brown trout, the latter sometimes reaching trophy size against the cold water and long winters. From late December through February the lake freezes solid and the park hosts the Fire and Ice festival, an ice-sculpting competition started in 2004 that brings carvers, a chili cook-off, fireworks, and a small ski-joring run on the frozen surface.
Access is via U.S. Route 50 — the so-called Loneliest Road in America — east from Ely, then south on Success Summit Loop Road for about seven miles of paved and gravel surface. The park has two campgrounds with 36 sites total, day-use picnic areas, two boat ramps, and the Steptoe Creek and Lake View trails for short hikes. Entrance is by Nevada state park day-use fee, with reduced rates for Nevada residents. Snow closes parts of the access road from roughly December through March outside event weekends.
