Notch & PassFragrance Co.

Candles for the high country

See the candles Your own place
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The name

The low place in the ridge.

Every range has its own word for it: the low place in the ridge where the road goes through, and the weather with it. In New England it is a notch. In the Smokies, a gap. In the Rockies and the Sierra, a pass. The word changes with the mountains. The place does not. It is the top of the climb, the trees thinning out, and the country you drove all that way for opening up in front of you.

Two collections. Trail, for what the ground smells like on the way up. Places, for the spots you keep going back to.

The Woodsmoke & Birch Tar candle lit on a granite sill at dusk, its pine lid leaning beside it, a forested ridge through the window
Five people in wool coats sitting around a small campfire at blue hour, a candle burning on the log between them
An open truck tailgate at a high pull-off with a folded map, a stone, boots and a lit candle

Trail

Needles, sap, sage, smoke.

Six scents built from what a trail actually gives off: trees, needles, herbs, grasses, soil, smoke. Six tints of the same rounded, translucent bubble glass, under a pine lid with the mark burnt in. The contours on the side are real, lifted from a place that smells like this. Which place, we keep to ourselves.

The Fir & Balsam candle: grey bubble glass, white contour print, pine lid with the mark burnt in Balsam fir boughs and birch bark, frost on the needles
01

Fir & Balsam

Fraser fir · Balsam · Wet granite

Grey glass

The Pine Needle & Sap candle: sand bubble glass, white contour print, pine lid with the mark burnt in Pine needles and a bead of sap on plated bark
02

Pine Needle & Sap

Jeffrey pine · Warm bark · Resin

Sand glass

The Woodsmoke & Birch Tar candle: smoked olive glass, white contour print, pine lid with the mark burnt in Thin smoke rising from a small birch fire at dusk
03

Woodsmoke & Birch Tar

Birch tar · Campfire · Vetiver

Smoked olive glass

The Sage & Palo Santo candle: opaline cream glass, white contour print, pine lid with the mark burnt in Silver sagebrush after rain
04

Sage & Palo Santo

Wet sagebrush · Palo santo · Dry wood

Opaline cream glass

The Juniper & Tonka candle: amber bubble glass, white contour print, pine lid with the mark burnt in Juniper branch with dusty blue berries
05

Juniper & Tonka

Juniper berry · Patchouli · Tonka

Amber glass

The Moss & Meltwater candle: moss-green glass, white contour print, pine lid with the mark burnt in Wet moss on granite with snowmelt running over it
06

Moss & Meltwater

Snowmelt · Wet moss · Alpine flowers

Moss green glass

The six Trail candles in a row: the same rounded translucent glass in grey, sand, smoked olive, opaline cream, amber and moss green, white contours, pine lids
Trail · one jar, six tints of glass

Places

A spot you can stand in.

Six national parks to start, three spots in each. The jar is the same straight-sided amber glass every time. What changes is the sheet printed on it in white, the spot named on the label, and which Trail scent fits the ground. The label is textured estate paper, and its colour belongs to the park: every spot in a park wears the same colour.

Great Smoky Mountains

North Carolina / Tennessee

The Newfound Gap candle: amber glass, its sheet printed in white, a spruce green estate-paper label, pine lid with the mark USGS Clingmans Dome, 1:24,000, 1964, the sheet around Newfound Gap

Newfound Gap

5,046 ft · Woodsmoke & Birch Tar

Yosemite

California

The Tioga Pass candle: amber glass, its sheet printed in white, a burnt sienna estate-paper label, pine lid with the mark USGS Tuolumne Meadows, 1:62,500, 1956, the sheet around Tioga Pass

Tioga Pass

9,943 ft · Juniper & Tonka

Yellowstone

Wyoming

The Dunraven Pass candle: amber glass, its sheet printed in white, a ochre estate-paper label, pine lid with the mark USGS Tower Junction, 1:62,500, 1959, the sheet around Dunraven Pass

Dunraven Pass

8,859 ft · Pine Needle & Sap

Rocky Mountain

Colorado

The Milner Pass candle: amber glass, its sheet printed in white, a sage estate-paper label, pine lid with the mark USGS Fall River Pass, 1:24,000, 1958, the sheet around Milner Pass

Milner Pass

10,758 ft · Moss & Meltwater

Grand Teton

Wyoming

The Jenny Lake candle: amber glass, its sheet printed in white, a stone grey estate-paper label, pine lid with the mark USGS Jenny Lake, 1:24,000, 1968, the sheet around Jenny Lake

Jenny Lake

6,783 ft · Sage & Palo Santo

Acadia

Maine

The Cadillac Mountain candle: amber glass, its sheet printed in white, a slate blue estate-paper label, pine lid with the mark USGS Bar Harbor, 1:62,500, 1942, the sheet around Cadillac Mountain

Cadillac Mountain

1,530 ft · Fir & Balsam

Six Places candles in a row, one from each park: amber jars, white contours, a coloured estate-paper label on each, pine lids
Places · one from each park · Great Smoky Mountains, Yosemite, Yellowstone, Rocky Mountain, Grand Teton, Acadia

Field notes

Six parks, eighteen spots.

A folded USGS sheet, a blank label strip, a pencil and a plain amber jar on a wooden table

Your place

Name the spot. We pull the sheet.

Every park has a spot people drive to, walk to, get cold at, and go home still talking about. If yours is not on our shelf, tell us where it is. We pull the USGS sheet for it, print those contours on the amber jar, set the estate-paper label in your park’s colour with the spot on top and the park beneath, and match the Trail scent to the ground. Park associations, outfitters, lodges, general stores, towns: anyone with a place worth standing in.

  • From 100 candlesOne place, one fragrance, one label colour. That is the minimum run, and the whole of it.
  • A real spotWe do not invent mountains. Send us somewhere you can stand. If it is on a sheet, we can print it.
  • Yours to keepThe sheet and the label are set up for you and stay with your order.

Send us your place

The sheet

The map came before the road.

Before there was a road there was a sheet of paper. Somebody spent a summer walking a ridge with a plane table and a rod, and when they came back down the mountain existed on paper for the first time: brown hairlines, crowded where it is steep, drifting apart where it flattens out. Learn to read them and you can hold a place in your hands before you have ever stood in it — where the wind will come from, where the water goes, where you would put the tent.

Notch & Pass started with a drawer of those sheets. Clingmans Dome, 1964. Tuolumne Meadows, 1956. Tower Junction, 1959. Fall River Pass, 1958. Jenny Lake, 1968. Bar Harbor, 1942. Government paper, drawn by people whose names are not printed on it, and every sheet a place worth the drive.

The rest was straightforward. Take what the ground actually smells like — fir, pine, sage, moss, smoke — and put it in glass worth keeping, under a pine lid with the mark burnt in. That is Trail. Then take the sheet of a place you love, print its contours on an amber jar so they glow when it is lit, set the park’s colour on the label and the name of the spot on top. That is Places. No mountain we made up. Nothing for the spa. Candles first; incense and room sprays, built on the same Trail scents, follow. These are candles for a room with people in it: the cabin at the end of the drive, the tailgate at the pull-off, the fire everyone has dragged a chair up to. The high country, brought down to sea level for a Tuesday.

Any rangeNotch, gap or pass — the word changes with the mountains, the idea does not.
Real geographyEvery Place is a spot you can stand in. No invented mountains.
WeatheredGlass, pine, a white contour print. Things that look better scratched.
CompanyCabin, tailgate, campfire. A candle for the group, not the spa.
UnderstatementNot purist, not costume. Mountain living, said plainly.
Sierra, Tioga Pass, oil on canvas by John Ross Key, 1870
John Ross Key · Sierra, Tioga Pass · 1870
USGS Jenny Lake quadrangle sheet, 1968
USGS · Jenny Lake, WY · 1968
USGS Tower Junction quadrangle sheet, 1959
USGS · Tower Junction, WY · 1959
USGS Bar Harbor quadrangle sheet, 1942, Mount Desert Island
USGS · Bar Harbor, ME · 1942

Public-domain images — Phoenix Art Museum (Key), National Park Service photographs, and the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.

For stores

Stock it before the first pour.

Notch & Pass launches on Faire with a preorder window ahead of the first pour. Outfitters, general stores, park-gateway shops, lodges and the good hardware store: cases of six, a counter card and testers, a starter set of Trail, and the Places nearest you. Your own place from 100 candles — see above.

Ask about wholesale

Contact

A note when we pour.

The launch date, the first Places, and where to find them. Nothing else.