El Perro Negro

Grumpy old mountain man living in Spain

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El Perro Negro (@elperronegro) on Khumbu

Next week 6 of us are planning a "Ruta Nocturnal", a 26km night crossing of Spain's Sierra Nevada from Pradollano in the NW to Capileira in the SE. Most of the route will be above 3000m altitude with a big descent of nearly 2000m. Highlights to include dinner with wine at the Col de Carihuela 😆, whilst watching the sunset & of course the tranquillity & beauty of hiking under the stars. Should be fun. Hoping for a dry & clear night.

This pm I took a huge gamble. I installed PostmarketOS, a mobile linux distribution, on my OnePlus6. It's buggy but I wanted to have a play around. Very easy to install via their web flasher.

Unfortunately, it's very buggy. Not many usable apps yet for my purposes. After playing around though & investigating I realised that I could install Waydroid. Game changer as Waydroid installs a LineageOS container within PostmarketOS. That way I had access to all my normal apps via F-Droid. Result!

It's always a bit of a heart stopping moment for me when you use ADB tools etc to flash a new OS onto an old phone. Will it work? Will I brick it?

Anyway managed to flash LineageOS onto an old OnePlus6 this morning. It's like having a new phone and a de-Googled one at that. Satisfying!

Cool day on Veleta yesterday!

Took the classic Paco Pepe route (4+) but decided to spice things up. After 1st 4 pitches, traversed R along the narrow & exposed Paso de Lagarto to the Variante Silvia (5) for 2 spectacular & sustained finishing pitches

Needed help from the rope at top of the crux which verges on 5+ for few meters. Thankfully Felipe there to assist. Will come back & try to climb 100% next summer. Training on arm strength is required!

1/2

Two people stand on small footholds, a yellow and purple rope between them on the floor. vertically below is a rock climber with light blue t-shirt climbing up

The author in a blue top and orange helmet is rock climbing up a near vertical crack system. Below can be seen another climber

The Paso de Lagarto (pass of the lizard) which is a spectacular horizontal traverse across mind blowingly steep terrain

El Perro Negro stands attached to a yellow rope. He has orange helmet, blue top and red trousers.

A few more night shots from our backpacking trip a few nights ago. Night photography is a bit new for me but I enjoyed the experience and will certainly try some more

The last light of the sunset is fading and the stars appear over to the west. A tent is illuminated by headtorch. The brightness of the torch illuminates the green grasses next to the torch

The milkyway and hundreds of stars appear over a mountain ridge line

The last light of the sunset is fading and the stars appear over to the west. A tent is illuminated by headtorch

About to head up into the mountains. Camping next to a lake in the cool air at nearly 3000 metres, under the stars, sounds attractive.

Heading against the grain as all the day trippers will be leaving the mountains as we enter them. Again, tomorrow morning we shall be leaving as they arrive. Sounds good to me.

Whilst in the UK last month my brothers & I came across an old leather case of my fathers. It contained hundreds of letters sent between him & my mother. It's a treasure trove!

Here is an extract written by him to my mother from his Royal Navy ship, HMS Glasgow on 24th February 1946. I particularly like the formality & style of writing.

Makes me wonder about the digital legacy we eventually shall leave behind. How interesting or searchable & discoverable will that be?

An old letter written in 1946 in handwriting with a letterhead from HMS Glasgow

@adele wow that's great!

On Lagrange browser (Linux) I am getting the following CGI Error. Any ideas, I'm a bit new to this

901e4402c5c7cab5

2/2 Then its glorious scrambling to the exit of the Canuto Norte del Veleta. From here the Fidel Fierro route to the summit is taken, care needed on the broken rock walls.

The climb finishes on the very summit of Veleta. Yesterday our group (average age 65+!) reached the summit to the bemused stares of groups of younger hikers who had walked up to the summit.

A superb day scramble for the adventurous.

Mountaineering

4 scramblers descending the peak of Zacatin in Spain's Sierra Nevada

A person in blue with white helmet stands below the summit of Veleta with arms outstretched

@khusky with a white and orange helmet ascending a short wall to the summit of Veleta in Spain's Sierra Nevada mountains

1/2 The "Arista de las Campanitas" from Cerro los Machos to the summit of Veleta is a superb scramble with an alpine nature. We did this in the hot sun, the ridge never falling below 3000m.

Grading wise, a grade 3S scramble but there are some very exposed sections and some short rock climbing 3 sections.

It passes over the easily scrambled, though sharp, ridge of Zacatin 3327m before arriving at the crux section, the ascent of the Campanario pinnacle 3328m. Rope could be useful here.

Some people cling to a narrow ledge on the side of the peak of Salon. Mountains stretch away to the right

4 scramblers in brightly colored gear and helmets start ascending a short rock wall

4 scramblers in brightly colored gear and helmets stand out on a brown rock mountain face with more mountains (Alcazaba and Mulhacen) stretching away into the background to the right

2 scramblers in brightly colored gear and orange helmets start climbing a short but steep rock wall

So, I was climbing up this steep rock slab a few days ago and out of a small cave in the rock above me appeared this Iberian Ibex (Cabra Montes). They are usually quite timid but this one stood his ground as I climbed around him. Probably protecting his "home" from alien invaders 😀

An Iberian Ibex peeks out of a cave

Thanks to @adele for opening the door to the Gemini Protocol again for me. I dabbled with Gemini back in 2021 but am returning to it now after a 4 year break and after seeing how our "normal" internet is rapidly disappearing into the "enshittification" mire (Mastodon excepted!).

Time again for a quiet place to connect with the interesting people of Gemini.

gemini://elperronegro.pollux.casa/

Want to create a gemini capsule, but do not want to manage a server contact @adele

Incredibly hot between 3000-3400 meters yesterday in the Sierra Nevada. No wind & a scorching sun beating down all day. No shade nor escape from the heat.

Not really the day for 6 of us (average age 65+ 😀 ) to go scrambling around on narrow ridges. Anyway we enjoyed it, especially the bit where we pulled up and over onto the very summit of Veleta to the obvious astonishment of the groups of young people who had walked up.

Don't often find videos of me playing about on the rocks but here's one.

Dropping down into the hugely impressive amphitheater of the Corral del Veleta yesterday. I never fail to be impressed by the scale of these huge rock walls.

The Coral de Veleta was the site of the last glacier in Spain's Sierra Nevada range. In fact technically it is still a glacier, a "rock glacier" meaning permafrost lies below the surface.

Worth a visit!

Two hikers on a narrow path are surrounded by rock walls. Ahead lies the peak of Veleta with some late season snow still around

A person in light blue descends a track on the right with huge rock walls towering above. There are still snow patches lower down in the valley

Anybody ask me for age verification and I'm outta there. Same as I delete accounts that ask me for facial ID (apart from my bank).