The bordermarkers of the Pyrenees : all my trips
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- tuesday 17 march 2009 -
Bm536 excavated

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 esfr-trip-track-20090317.kml
(click to open in Google Earth or copy link to Google Maps;
click right on this link to download gpx-version)

Part of a 5-days trip to the eastern Pyrenees.

Day 2: main target: returning to the location of  bm536 and find it.  Then to Coustouges  for my appointment with Jean Iglesias the next day.



 

 
For explanation of the gps-coordinates and other cartographic backgrounds:
see my cartography page

En route from 10.00  to 16.30, walking 5 ¾ hours.

According to my watch:
Elevation gain:  872m
Elevation loss:  464m
Total elevation: 1336m
According to visugpx
- distance : 8.84 km
- cum. elevation gain : 688 m
- cum. elevation loss : 283 m
- total elevation: 971 m

- altitude maxi : 823 m
- altitude mini : 391 m
- altitude average : 586 m

 Looking around in this intriguing chapel Saint Bartomeu.  Little prayers spread on the altar.
 
From the chapel down to the road and a bit further to the west, descending along a yellow waymarked trail to the river Muga which is dry at that point.

First I try to follow the riverbed upstream. But then I decide it's better to take the trail along the river which Jan-Willem and I followed in 2007.

That trail reaches - after some climbing and descending - the edge of the  riverbed again. I continue in the riverbed itself  as long as it's possible. A bit before continuation is no longer possible, I see  a trail starting at the east-side of the riverbed.
Afterwards I realize that this must be the continuation of the earlier trail.
That trail climbs, becomes unclear but brings me finally to bm538!
I remember from the Procès-Verbal something of a trail passing along bm538 in the direction of the Muga.

From 538 I follow our route from
 6 april 2008 , to the dry stream, bm537 and - on this picture - bm536.

Bm536 is easy to find because of the white arrows pointing at it and because it was half uncovered.
Close-up
After some excavating
And after chalking
I return on the same route (the trails seeeming more overgrown then last year) and climb further to bm539.

Then I realize that I forgot to photograph bm537 and bm538.
I return.
Bm538
Bm537

I try to return to bm538 more directly with help of the gps. I succeed but first end up on the Spanish side, beneath bm538.

The route via the dry stream is easier to orientate.
Looking down into Spain, the chapel visible in the deep.
Bm540
Bm541




In the concrete  base, 1960 is engraved, apparently the year of a reconstruction.
Bm541, close-up

Taking a break.

And continuing to Can d'Amunt in ¾ hours.
And to Coustouges in ½ hours.

There's a monument remembering the influx of Spanish refugees in 1939.
along the main road.
And I pitch my tent behind the cemetary of Coustouges, a quiet place.
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