SEASON 01 · NOW ANNOUNCED
Beta Season · Late Summer 2026
Eight weeks. Five Lake District fells. Four categories. Every entry shot from the same hidden zones, under the same clock, judged on the same rubric — then revealed, place by place, at an announced time.
Opens
3 Aug 2026
Monday
Closes
27 Sep 2026
Sunday
Duration
8 weeks
No time limit on any walk
Reveal
w/c 28 Sep
Judged, audited, then staged
FOUR CATEGORIES
Pick your fights
Every Photo Zone is briefed for at least one category. One photo, one category — your call which.
Sunset
SunsetGolden hour's last act. The fells at their most forgiving light, and the walk down in the dark to earn it.
Sunrise
SunriseDawn raids rewarded. Headtorch starts, first light on the tops, and summits you'll have entirely to yourself.
Waterfalls
WaterfallsMoving water from marked zones. Becks, forces and falls in full voice — capture the motion, on the spot.
Landscape
LandscapeThe classic view, mastered. The composition everyone knows, taken better than anyone else on the hill that day.
THE SEASON LOOP
How a season works
Instant feedback while the season runs; one consistent batch re-judge when it ends; a reveal worth turning up for.
- 01
Shoot on any live route
Walk one of the five live Lake District routes. Reach a hidden Photo Zone on foot and your shot window opens: up to three frames, in-app camera only, from the exact spot every other entrant stood.
- 02
Enter one category per photo
Each zone photo can be entered into exactly one of the four categories. Pick where it fights hardest — a dawn capture might be a Sunrise contender or a Landscape banker, but never both.
- 03
Scored and critiqued immediately
The moment your entry syncs, the AI judge grades it against the zone's brief on the fixed public rubric and returns a provisional score with two or three sentences of constructive feedback. Every entrant, every entry.
- 04
The season closes
Sunday 27 September 2026. Entries lock. Eight weeks of light, weather and legwork are now a fixed field — nothing added, nothing swapped.
- 05
The full re-judge
Every entry in every category is re-judged as a single batch against the same rubric, so the final ranking is consistent from the first photo of week one to the last frame before close.
- 06
The podium is audited
Before anything is announced, a human audits every winning entry: GPS track plausibility, capture-time hashes, integrity flags. Nobody stands on the podium unchecked.
- 07
The staged reveal
At an announced time the following week, results land in sequence — third place, then second, then the winner, then the full scorecards, then People's Choice. Appointment viewing. Be there.
REVEAL ORDER
The full results never leak out in a quiet database update. They are staged, live, at a time announced in advance — so the whole beta cohort finds out together.
THE SECOND AWARD
People's Choice
The AI picks the podium. The community picks People's Choice. Two verdicts, one field.
BLIND PAIRS
Members are shown two anonymised entries side by side and tap the stronger one. No names, no scores, no camera talk — just the photographs. An Elo-style rating orders the field as votes accumulate.
FAIR BY DESIGN
You are never shown your own entries, votes are capped at around twenty pairs a day, and galleries stay anonymised until the season closes. Ballot-stuffing has nowhere to stand.
A SEPARATE PRIZE
People's Choice sits beside the AI-judged podium, not beneath it. It is revealed last on results night — the community's own verdict on the season.
ENTRY RULES
The short version
Four rules cover most of it. The full competition rules are the binding text.
18 or over
The beta season is adults only. You confirm your date of birth at signup.
In-app captures only
No gallery uploads, ever. Frames are hashed at the moment of capture inside the shot window.
One entry per photo
Each zone photo enters one category, once. Choose deliberately.
Be in the zone
Entries must be captured on foot, GPS-verified, from inside the Photo Zone. Where the zones are stays secret — that is the game.
Read the full competition rules before you enter. Routes and safety notes live in the mountains directory.
BETA PRIZES
What winning gets you
No cash, no vouchers, no sponsored kit in the beta season — deliberately.
GLORY
Your name on the Season 1 podium — the first ever run, the one every later season gets measured against.
BADGES
Trig-point badges on your profile: category podiums, People's Choice, and the peaks you bagged earning them.
THE FOUNDERS' GALLERY
Winning photographs enter the founders' gallery — the permanent record of the members who were here first.
OPENS 3 AUGUST 2026
Money can't buy the podium. Neither can anything else.
Same zone, same shot window, same in-app camera, same rubric for everyone. The only way onto the Season 1 podium is up a fell with a phone in your pocket. HIKE · REACH · SHOOT · JUDGE