Mountain Sunrise and Lava Spill

I'm still digging through my oldest Minecraft screenshots for the best to share.

This one was taken on an impressive co-op SMP game where my friends and I had built and dug to a point we started exploring the option of each of us having our own personalized places.

While mining, I broke through to the outdoors again and saw this amazing view (minus the ice). Heading outside, I discovered I was digging through a tall spire of mountain that looked like a natural tower. I claimed this as "my spot" and transformed the spire into a tower made of snow, following the original shape of the mountain.

I struck a deal with a friend to have him mine some ice with his Silk Touch pickaxe, which I used for windows. While working on my snow fortress, I snapped this pic as the sun was rising behind the neighboring mountain.

This shot was taken while exploring when I noticed a huge, lit up patch of lava on my map at night. It was day before I finally got to it, and found this.

Notice at the top that it all begins with one little square of lava coming out the side of the land, but due to the terrain it spreads to cover a roughly 12-space wide triangle that even hits the river bank, creating stone. I'm sure there's a life lesson in there somewhere if you think about it.