The bordermarkers of the Pyrenees : all my trips - sunday 2 june 2013 - Bm139: cornerstone of a cabin previous trip      next trip Summary: a seven-days trip with Jan-Willem with a lot of targets in the Basque country and around Llivia. Day 3: two trips (exploring a route between bm139 and 138 and visiting again bm196) and a transfer to a camping near Isaba. Weather: cloudy/foggy Trip 1 A small trip to explore a direct route between bm138 and 139. esfr-trip-track-20130602-trip1.kml (click to open this trip in Google Earth or copy link to Google Maps; click right on this link to download gpx-version) For explanation of the gps-coordinates and other cartographic backgrounds: cartography page According to visugpx - distance :  1,9 km - cum. elevation gain : 170 m - cum. elevation loss :  163 m - total elevation: 333 m - altitude maxi : 728 m - altitude mini : 576 m - altitude average : 653 m We first drive to bm139. The kid of the farmhouse has built a messy cabin against the bordermarker, using it as a cornerstone. We forgive him. Bm139 Bm139 The farmer's wife gives us some directions and together with our gps, we can easily find a route to bm138. I'm content. It results in the following directions from bm138 towards 139: - from bm138 go a bit to the W until the end of the dirtroad in a final bend of the road. At this point two streams come together continuing SE - cross the 1st stream, the dirtroad becomes a path - cross the second stream - and climb to a semi-open place  in the forest - the trail seems to vanish SW in the direction of 3 large trees - but after the last of those trees, the trail reappears -and after ± 100m crosses a third stream - then go left on the trail - the trail climbs gently SE and arrives at a fence - cross the fence - descend  SE in the forest with keeping the fence/rockwall at your left in sight - after ± 200m you'll get to a tiny stream and beyond it another fence - cross that fence and continue descending SE for ± 150m in the forest until you reach the tarmac road - go left for ± 100m until a farmhouse left - bm139 is at the opposite site of the road, in front of a small barn. We can now merge the two explorations (from yesterday and today) in one map (derived from the Aragon Sitna-website): how to descend from bm137 to 139. Trip 2 We return to Saint-Étienne-de-Baïgorry, pack our tent and drive to Isaba to the Asolaze-camping. We make a stop at bm196 to make some other pictures. We discovered this long sought borderstone two days earlier on 20130531 Bm196 Bm196 Bm196 And the distances between bm196 and the balustrade and the legs of the disapeared billboard: Bm196 I'm very convinced that this is bm196 but finding a number would have been 100% evidence. But after digging a few hours on , we gave up for that last proof. But 2 months later - on july 31th - I received pictures of Anne-Marie Bats and Bernadette. They have continued where Jan-Willem and I had to stop and delivered the ultimate evidence: Camping Asolaze is ± 20km from the borderpass of Col de la Pierre St-Martin.  A short reconnaissance-drive up the mountains, tells us that there is still too much snow for our scheduled trip to the bm251-cross. We have to change our plans. That's what we decide in the evening, the camping has a nice communal room & kitchen. There's also wifi, something which has become a conditio sine qua non for us. We're getting spoilt. previous trip      next trip