El Perro Negro

Hiking in t shirts and shorts last week. This week it's full on winter layers with a -7 windchill! At 1744 meters on the Peñon del Jorobado in the Sierra de Huetor today with @khusky and @chriswright

Lanjarón this morning from the dog walk. A fine day but rain is forecast this afternoon and for the next few days. Good news for the land. Snow above 2000 meters.

Productive first full day back in Spain 🇪🇸

Homemade granola bars for hiking trips and a large batch of homemade limoncello on the go. Just got to process those magnificent pomegranates

A visit back to middle England for me this week. It's nice to see friends and family but I don't enjoy the crowds, costs and stresses, which are somewhat alien to me living in rural Spain. What England does have though is an interesting, beautiful and historical network of canal waterways. A heritage from its industrial past. Here's a couple of shots from a short walk I did today with @khusky

Somewhere over the rainbow. Lanjarón, Alpujarra.

Came across these old building remains during my Tabernas desert hike. Turns out they were part of a film set, originally built to portray a small village in "Chino" (1973), a spaghetti western starring Charles Bronson and Jill Ireland.

Also used in "Straight to Hell" (1987) starring Courtney Love, Joe Strummer, Sly Richardson & Shane MacGowan.

Better go and watch those movies I guess 🤔

Photos from the Tabernas desert badlands hike I did a few days ago. The whole area is a a chaotic mass of broken rock and battered, crumbling cliffs

A strange thing to come across yesterday whilst hiking in the Taberna's desert badlands of Almeria! Any idea what this was and why it was here? 🤣

@alan @TimKStanton

This is the Restaurante Alfaro seen today. It's situated next to the Repsol petrol station at the A92 / Tabernas exit. It was used as the bar/disco in Kaos run by Eddie Izzard. Also used a few times in the Black Mirror series (see Black Museum)

@lpryszcz Sure. A little hard to figure out the approach when close but its only 25m from the dirt road. https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=19/37.010296/-2.453068

Today I hiked in a place close to my heart and stood in the exact same footsteps as Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach in "The Good, the Bad & the Ugly". This view never fails to stir the senses, I love it here. Tabernas Desert, Almeria, .

Been experimenting with Sideband app on a couple of phones. Utilises Reticulum Network Stack to create cryptographically secure mesh networks, useful in disaster areas. Can also see many outdoor world applications for this. When I understand the protocol further I might add a Rnode modem which creates a LoRa signal to extend the mesh. LoRa encodes information on radio waves. Early days yet for me but fascinating and interesting technology.

https://unsigned.io

A very welcome cool 15c on today dog walk. Very autumnal but stunning in the morning light.

Many people over the years have taken the mickey out of me for being totally useless at DIY. And, quite rightly. Anyway the tables turned today as I took out a ceiling beam and cemented all the holes. If it can be hit with a hammer or have cement thrown at it, I'm your man. Just waiting for the roof to collapse tonight 🤣

Another use for the Nitecore NU21 headtorch too!

Last night I started reading "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism" by Shoshana Zuboff which looks to be a fascinating, topical and insightful read. Anybody read it?

Patagonia 2010. Trapped on the Icecap I had the most unsettling mountain experience of my life. On this particular day Sat Nav had failed so it was like the old days pre-weather forecasting. We all knew we were on the edge and managed to bail out next day with some micro navigation through a serac barrier and down a glacier to safety. Wouldn't like to go through it again but it is without doubt the time we talk about the most 🤔

1 minute video with @khusky

I'm a bit knackered after sleeping on the sofa all night. Reason? Infestation of woodlice! Been going on for some time. We've tried pulse waves, de-humidifiers and tried to block holes in our bedroom natural rock wall. Nothing has worked. Ok, they aren't dangerous but who wants them dropping on you at night? We are talking 50+ a night. Last night we tried commercial poison both outside, where we think the main nest is, and inside the bedroom. Life in rural Spain eh?

Seems a little crazy to be putting a post about snow/blizzards am & pm telling you about how my Sun Umbrella from Six Moon Designs functioned! 🙂

Coming down to low levels in 30C heat yesterday afternoon. Hot & humid. There was fortunately a gusty breeze which helped. The Sun Umbrella worked great providing much needed cooling shade on an otherwise treeless & arid slope. I like how it collapses under strong wind gusts. Recommended for hot hikes.

https://www.sixmoondesigns.com/products/silver-shadow-carbon-umbrella

Patagonia Image 4

This image brings back quite emotive memories for me & conveys the full emptiness that is the Southern Patagonian Icecap.

Life here is very simple, arrive at camp, build snow walls, eat, drink & sleep. Sometimes we have sheltered for days in blizzard conditions. You can't afford a mistake, being 3+ days from human settlements.

Snow walls ... & who'd have thought there's so many technicalities in their construction?

@hikingdude nice shots. In the spring I spent 3 full days in the wild looking for this elusive creature and this is the best (only!) photo I could obtain 🤣