Davis Mountains Skyline Drive
— a sky island the desert holds up to the light.
Not only on a wall.
Davis Mountains Skyline Drive, 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.
“A long oval of two-lane blacktop that lifts a driver out of the Chihuahuan creosote and into juniper and pinyon, then out again. State Highway 118 climbs past the McDonald Observatory and TX-166 closes the ring under Sawtooth and Mount Livermore. The road is empty most afternoons. The light at six is the reason people come back. — from the studio
The place, in three passes.
The Davis Mountains Scenic Loop runs about seventy-five miles through Jeff Davis County in far West Texas, climbing from roughly 4,900 feet at Fort Davis to over 6,700 feet near the McDonald Observatory on Mount Locke. The loop is formed by State Highways 118 and 166, with the small town of Fort Davis as its anchor. The range is the most extensive in Texas and a classic sky island, an oasis of higher-elevation woodland sitting above the surrounding Chihuahuan Desert.
The Davis Mountains are a sky island, which is the reason for both the cooler air and the dark sky. Elevation lifts daytime temperatures roughly ten to fifteen degrees below Marfa or Alpine in summer, and the absence of city light has made the McDonald Observatory, sitting at 6,790 feet on Mount Locke, one of the great research observatories of the lower forty-eight since 1939. On a clear October night the Milky Way reads as a band, not a glow.
The loop is free, open daily, and drivable in about two and a half hours without stops. Most travelers start at Fort Davis on US-90, take TX-118 north past Davis Mountains State Park and Indian Lodge, climb to the Observatory turnout, then return on TX-166 below Mount Livermore at 8,378 feet. There is no fuel between Fort Davis and the loop's far side. The McDonald Observatory Visitor Center is the one indoor stop; star parties run several nights a week.
