Now, I know this is just a video, but I am putting it here because Jonathan doesn't approve of me using Twitter, and I meant to put it here at some point anyway. It's actually not really a video at all, but a series of stills taken with a digital camera on a rotating mount. I think they timed the rotation precisely so that they'd catch the cliffs above the lake being illuminated by the sunrise. More info here. Click through to Vimeo and watch the video HD and fullscreen, though.
Pavey Ark is a fell (local dialect for mountain) in the Lake District, NW England. It stands above the valley of Great Langdale, which is the most beautiful valley I have seen in the UK, and is climbed most via the Stickle Ghyll ascent from the Old Dungeon Ghyll Hotel down in the valley bottom (not so much a hotel although you can stay there, but more a wonderful, atmospheric no-shit climbers' bar with higgledy-piggledy wooden snugs and a big old black range with a fire when it's cold, and Old Peculier on tap).
The point of Pavey Ark, as with most fells in the valley, is that it is both beautiful to look at and hard to get up. You can't stroll up the steep path by the stream which flows from Stickle Tarn (the lake in the video). You can't stroll from the tarn to the summit.
And that cliff above the tarn - you can, if you wish, take your life in your hands and climb it without ropes, and I have done so, although at the temporary expense of my nerves. And the skin on my fingertips. Should you try the same thing, don't try it on a wet day, and if the day is wet, watch your step on the way down from the tarn. You may break an ankle if you're not careful.
But the Old Peculier at the end of it all is so good. Worth rushing for.
