Mount Rushmore winter snow
— the four faces under a quiet weight of white.
Not only on a wall.
Mount Rushmore winter snow, 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.
“Most photographs of Rushmore come from the summer queue. The winter version is a different mountain. Snow gathers in the brows and the corners of the mouths, and the granite pulls a colder grey from the sky. The amphitheatre below empties out. The flags on Avenue go quiet without their crowds. Park rangers keep the viewing terrace open through most of the season, and on the cold mornings the four faces hold the snow the way a face holds a thought.
The place, in three passes.
Mount Rushmore National Memorial sits in the Black Hills of South Dakota, about 23 miles southwest of Rapid City and a short drive from the town of Keystone. The four 60-foot faces — Washington, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Lincoln — were carved into the southeast face of the mountain between 1927 and 1941 under sculptor Gutzon Borglum, and finished by his son Lincoln after his death. The memorial sits at roughly 5,725 feet, on land the Lakota know as the Six Grandfathers. The National Park Service has managed the site since 1933 and reports more than two million visitors a year.
Winter at Rushmore runs from late November into March, with snowfall averaging around 50 inches a year on the Black Hills front. The viewing terraces and the Presidential Trail's lower loop stay open through most of the cold months, though the upper trail and parts of the Sculptor's Studio close in heavy weather. The granite is Harney Peak granite, the same rock that forms the Needles to the south, and it holds snow in shallow drifts along the brows and noses. Storms tend to clear quickly, and the morning light after a front is the cleanest light the memorial gets.
The memorial is open year-round, with no entrance fee; parking is operated by the concessionaire and runs about $10 for a car, valid for the calendar year. The grounds open at 5 a.m. and close at 11 p.m. in summer, with shorter hours in winter. The Avenue of Flags, the Grand View Terrace, the Presidential Trail, and the Lincoln Borglum Visitor Center sit within a short walk of the main lot. The evening lighting ceremony runs from late May through September only; winter visitors see the faces by daylight, which is the right way to see them in snow.
