The bordermarkers of the Pyrenees : all my trips
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- 8 may 2009 -
Through the mist

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 esfr-trip-track-20090508.kml
(click to open in Google Earth or copy link to Google Maps;
click right on this link to download gpx-version)

It's a foggy day, making orientation difficult. The fog amplifies the silence and solitude.
For explanation of the gps-coordinates and other cartographic backgrounds:
see my cartography page

En route: 7.45-18.15, lunch 45'
Elevation according to my watch: up 1435m Down 1308m, in total 2743 m
Heighest point 1039m, lowest 623m

According to visugpx
- distance : 11.6 km
- cum. elevation gain :  1004 m
- cum. elevation loss : 874 m
- total elevation:  1878 m

- altitude maxi : 998 m
- altitude mini : 655 m
- altitude average : 805 m

An early start. Following the path uphill until a plateau with this barn.
From that plateau on compass-reading uphill in the direction of bm141.
What seems at first the summit is not the summit, you have to climb on to the real summit with

bm141.
Then descending on compass-reading to the road. At the road a little searching: the bm is at the western roadside.

Bm142
Bm142

The border-crossing is clear: the French tarmac stops there and there's a bordere-fence going ophill.
Then a steep descent into the forest, using my compass, the final - wet - part to the stream being slippery.
Crossing the stream is not easy. I search long for bm143, going hence and forth along the streaam. The gps tells me where the border is more or less and I can identify a forest-trail descending to the E-bank to the approximate border by comparing it with the map.

But I can't find bm143. Perhaps it's hidden under the fallen trees or it has flooded away.


I give up and climb uphill - slippery - and get too much at the Spanish side, get desoriented and arrive outside the forest near to two shepherd's cabins.

Miracously, I spot during a brief brightening-up a marker on a ridge far away. Via a dirtroad behind the cabin at the right, I reach the ridge and further on I find

bm144.

I take a lunch-break, sitting against the bm.

Then a very steep descent to and climb from a stream.

This picture: looking down into that steep valley.

But I can't find bm145. It's difficult to orientate in the mist but in the end I think I have found the "l'arête inclinée" from the Procès-Verbal. But I'm not sure and still: no bm145.

I have to return here.
I continue to the tarmac road, climb a bit on the road until the approximate borderline, then climb the hillridge and find

bm146.
Then descending to the tarmac road on the other side of the ridge, following it in its bend on Spanish territory. There I spot a large boulder above the road at my right hand.

I climb to it and on its backside I find

bm147.
Bm147
The boulder with bm147, seen from the road.
I keep following the road, take a branch to the right which turns into a dirtroad on the borderline and - after two bends - arrives at a cabin. Just before the cabin, east of the dirtroad, I find

bm148.
Bm148

Despite not finding bm143 and 145, I'm content with the 'harvest' of today.
But my progress is too slow and I have to proceed in the direction of St-Jean-Pied-de-Port tomorrow.
I return on the road and find this camping-spot. A watertap at the house makes things easier.

Coordinates: N43 02 35.9 W1 24 03.0 H 792m.
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