Granada's eastern edge sits at about 750 m and the road does not stop climbing for another thirty-odd kilometres. The A-395 works up in long open curves, with cafés and the El Dornajo visitor centre for bottles on the lower half, then loses its trees above the Pradollano ski station and turns pale and bare, the 30 m dish of the Pico Veleta observatory standing out on the mountainside at 2,850 m. Hoya de la Mora, around 2,500 m, is the last food and water, a car park with kiosks, and the barrier there has kept unauthorised motor traffic off the road since 1999, so what follows is empty. Above it the surface goes gritty and broken, the gradient settles near 7–8% and holds, and the thin air changes your breathing long before the top. Asphalt gives out around 3,300 m and the final metres to the 3,398 m summit are loose stone, with a small hut beside the obelisk and ibex on the slopes.