Gifts for Climbers: Lake District Art for People Who Climb

Buying for a climber is hard. They already own the rope, the rack and the shoes, and they are particular about every piece of it. What they rarely have is something for the wall that says what climbing means to them. A painting of a crag, a ridge or the mountain where it all began makes a present they will look at every day, between trips.

This guide is for anyone buying for a climber or scrambler with a soft spot for the Lake District, which many of them have, for good reason.

Where British climbing began

Wasdale Head is often described as the birthplace of British rock climbing. In June 1886 Walter Parry Haskett Smith climbed Napes Needle, a slender pinnacle on the south face of Great Gable, alone and without a rope, and left his handkerchief wedged at the top. His route, the Wasdale Crack, is still the usual way up, graded Hard Severe today. The climb is often taken as the moment climbing became a sport in its own right rather than a way up a mountain.

He was not quite the first. A local man, John Atkinson of Croftfoot in Ennerdale, climbed Pillar Rock alone on 9 July 1826, and the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge scrambled down Broad Stand, between Scafell and Mickledore, in August 1802. But it was the Victorian climbers who gathered at the inn at Wasdale Head who turned it into a pastime. Wasdale Head paintings.

Climbers on the crag

For a climber, a painting of people on rock says more than any summit view. These pieces show climbers at work on Lakeland crags in very different styles, from bold colour to soft dusk light.

All of these are in our Activities and Sports collection, alongside walkers, runners and swimmers.

For the mountaineer: Great Gable and the climbers' memorial

Great Gable means more to climbers than any other fell. After the First World War the Fell and Rock Climbing Club, which was founded at Coniston in 1906, bought some 3,000 acres of the high fells, including the summit of Great Gable, and gave them to the National Trust as a memorial to members killed in the war. A bronze plaque on the summit, dedicated in June 1924, names twenty of them, and a remembrance service is held at the top every November. For a climber who has stood there, a painting of Great Gable is a present with real weight. Great Gable paintings.

For the scrambler: the edges and the rakes

Not every climber wants a rope. Scramblers live for the knife-edged ridges, and the Lake District has the most famous in England. Striding Edge, the classic way up Helvellyn, is a grade 1 scramble along a rocky crest above Red Tarn. Sharp Edge on Blencathra is narrower still, and was once known as Razor Edge. Jack's Rake, a grade 1 scramble too, climbs diagonally across the face of Pavey Ark above Stickle Tarn. Striding Edge paintings and Pavey Ark paintings.

For the crag climber: Pillar, Scafell and Dow Crag

Every climber has a crag that feels like theirs. Pillar Rock, above Ennerdale, was the first great rock climb in the Lakes. Scafell Crag holds Central Buttress, first climbed by Siegfried Herford, George Sansom and C. F. Holland in April 1914 and long thought the hardest climb in England. Dow Crag, above Goat's Water on the Old Man of Coniston, has more than a hundred routes on its rough rhyolite. In Langdale there is Gimmer Crag, quick to dry and catching the sun, and in Borrowdale the roadside Shepherd's Crag, where Little Chamonix, first climbed by Bentley Beetham in 1946, may be the most climbed route in the Lakes.

If their crag has its own page in the shop, start there: Pillar Rock, Scafell, Dow Crag, Great Langdale and Borrowdale.

Their own crag, painted

If the rock they love is not in the shop, we can paint it. Send us a photograph or simply tell us about the place and the day, and we will paint it in the style you choose. People in the picture become small figures on the rock rather than portraits, which is how a climbing painting should look anyway. Start at my.lakedistrict.art.

Choosing the right piece

• For a hallway or landing, where climbing kit tends to live, a 70cm framed canvas holds its own. Our guide to hallway and staircase art has more on sizes.
• For a first flat or a smaller room, a 40cm framed print is easy to hang and easy to move.
• For above a sofa, a panoramic canvas of Wasdale or a 90cm square gives the wall a real sense of the mountains.

Prices:

• Unframed print: £59.99 / £79.99 / £99.99 (40cm / 70cm / 90cm)
• Framed print: £89.99 / £129.99 / £199.99
• Unframed canvas: £79.99 / £119.99 / £169.99
• Framed canvas: £109.99 / £159.99 / £209.99
• Panoramic framed canvas: £169.99 (30 x 91cm) / £259.99 (51 x 152cm)

Frames come in black, white or natural wood, and framed pieces arrive ready to hang. Everything is made to order: printing takes 2-5 working days, then UK delivery takes 3-7 working days, so for Christmas allow three weeks. You can add a gift message at checkout. The paintings are impressions of these places rather than photographs of them.

Buying for someone who walks rather than climbs? See our gifts for walkers and our guide to gifts for outdoor people.