At 4.40am, groggy after a wind-battered night, I unzip my tent door. To my delight and dismay, the scene is worth getting out of bed for: delicate dawn light gilds the fells, lights up the flanks of Great Gable and blurs the hills around Derwentwater into a wistful, honey-coloured haze.
I watch the dawn unfold from a rocky perch. Our camp is nestled amid the burly, intricate flanks of Great End, overlooking the high sanctuary of England’s mountain giants, where Great Gable and the various summits of the Scafell massif crowd around the Sty Head pass. The mountain architecture is cathedral-like in scale and complexity: vast crags, home to some of the world’s oldest climbing routes, as well as arctic-alpine plant communities; waterfalls cascading over rocky terraces; and steep-sided, cavernous gills with flanks hosting the likes of juniper, rowan and roseroot, where they can grow unmolested by sheep.
