Beautiful winter sunset in the Alpujarra tonight

I love RSS feeds and do most of my blog and website catching up using these feeds. Used various pieces of software over the years to co-ordinate and aggregate feeds. Today, just installed FreshRSS on my server. Easy to install and no messing with ports forwarding etc. Just install on a server you run. Initial thoughts are that it works really well and provides a very nice platform to read your content.

https://www.freshrss.org/

Christmas Eve from a pub somewhere in darkest Andalucia 😂 . Can't say this reminds me of my Christmas's from my youth in the UK

Anyway, if you celebrate Christmas, ... Feliz Navidad a todos

Had some time to play today so back to exploring netstack using and app.

Excited that without wifi, bluetooth nor mobile data I managed to connect the two phones and send/receive text messages via LORA.

Initial testing got me to the end of my land (100m) without problems. Not "line of sight" either. Will extend distance tomorrow on dog walk. What can these very tiny aerials achieve?

After that maybe time for big aerial on the roof?

Back in southern Spain our group hiked up the Silleta de Padul from Padul (S of Granada). A nice 12km circular hike with 850m ascent/descent. Much of interest, including spectacular views of the Sierra Nevada mountains and the rock arch of "Piedra Ventana". Give it a go!

Nearly Christmas and we were fortunate to be able to walk around in t-shirts and shorts

I've seen Lautaro from far away to the south. A magnificent massif rising out of the Patagonian Icecap. Remote. Hats off to these two who managed to ski down the 2200m north face.

https://explorersweb.com/first-ski-descent-of-the-north-face-of-chiles-lautaro-volcano/

My two daughters and I sat on the diminutive summit of Latrigg last week, in the English Lake District with the town of Keswick and Derwentwater lake below.

We had just left my Dad, who died a few years back, with an eternal view over a place he dearly loved. What a final resting vista!

As a young inner city kid, in 1971 I was introduced to the hills. We spent some days camping & climbing the mountains surrounding the Newlands Valley in England's Lake District. Last week I returned to my spiritual hiking birthplace.

The forecast was dreadful but the gods were smiling. Cloud inversion & some wonderful light conditions. Quite emotional. Brought back many memories from my past.

@bergmeister

Mt Fitzroy (Chalten) 3405m.

I'm back in the UK visiting friends and family pre xmas. It's cold, grey, damp and frankly, quite depressing. Having said that the local village pubs are warm, welcoming and offer some lovely tasting and wonderfully inventive cask beers such as this 😃

It's bank holiday here in Spain so we knew many of the popular walks would be busy. Instead we drove 15 minutes to a town called Chite, which we had never visited before. Had beautiful hike through lush forests and lakeside (Embalse de Beznar). A glorious 2 hour, 7km circular walk that ended at the bar in Chite.

Amazing what's on your doorstep that can sometimes get overlooked!

This is amazing. Spotted these walls half way up a vertical cliff in the Tajos de Bermejales. Who built them and why?

From Wikipedia ...

1/2

Neolithic people lived in the canyon 5,000 years ago, sheltering under its overhanging walls and using the river as source of food. There are traces of these early settlers on the canyon walls about 10 metres above the present river level. Some of the walls they built to enclose the cavities in the canyon wall are still visible.

Not into self promotion but this is the 7th anniversary of the publication of my guidebook to Spain's Sierra Nevada. Can't believe how time has flown by.

They say everybody has a book in them, I guess this was mine. Quite hard writing a guidebook. You have to remain factual not flowery, keep stories short & relevant etc.

Yes, I get some royalties, cup of coffee for every book sold, but truth is that this was a labor of love, not for reward. My way to spread the word about these mountains.

Some more photos from our trip this week down the Barranco de Tajos Bermejales. A very interesting hiking route with twists and turns, ups and downs and a few surprising features. Be prepared for some wobbly wire bridges, deep undergrowth, ladders, rungs and short sections of very easy scrambling, safeguarded by dodgy fixed ropes. Great stuff and recommended that you visit.

On certain sections of the Tajos de Bermejales gorge hike there are ropes to assist in descent or ascent. Have to say though that taking to the rocks direct seemed a much safer alternative 😀 . The first photo looks like Edward Whymper's rope that he last used on the Matterhorn in 1865!

The lower section of the Tajos de Bermejales gorge. A magical place!

Being a keen photographer, that doesn't do "selfies", I don't get in photos much. I do love this one though taken yesterday by @khusky.

I'm on a rikkety bridge over a small river with huge rock walls towering above and a very colorful scene upstream. The Tajos de Bermejales gorge, near Granada

Off for a walk to visit the Tajos de Bermejales gorge. Strange to be getting my stuff ready and putting on shorts on 1st December. 14C now and 22C expected.

I find the Garmin Explore website incredibly slow and buggy. Seems like it hasn't improved in years. For a company that has some of the best backpacking/hiking aids when on the trail, this isn't good enough.

This has been a gripe of mine for many years and to be honest has stopped me from buying more Garmin gadgets (watches etc)

Anybody else feel the same or is it just me being a grumpy old man? 😀

No 25 on the list of "what to do with all the lemons" is ... making Lemon Curd. Done!😃