A mountain climber on the Sierra Nevada came across a hand grenade, which is not something that you expect to find up there, is it?

The explosive device, which was found in the Vértice de Calar area within the municipality of Güéjar Sierra, dates back to the Spanish Civil War (1936-39).

As it was impossible for the Guardia Civil bomb-disposal squad to get there by road, they were flown by helicopter, together with the necessary material to carry out a controlled detonation.

The EDEX team found that although the outer shell was cracked open, the detonator was intact. After play catch with it until they got bored, they found somewhere safe to detonate it.

Had it been winter with snow everywhere, they wouldn’t have been able to detonate it for fear of causing an avalanche. But then again, if the mountain was under a metre of snow, the climber wouldn’t have found it in the first place.

The incredible thing is that although the war finished nearly 80 years ago, all sorts of ammunition keeps turning up in the province.

(News: Sierra Nevada, Granada, Andalucia)