Tag Archives: bm002

The Basque-border on fire

Javier Martinez Ruiz informed me of a devastating fire on 20-21 February 2021 along the borderridge in the Basque country between bm001 and La Rhune. See also this news-article

He sent me some pictures and comparing them with my pictures of June 2020, you can see the destruction.

This is a picture of mine of bm002 from June 2020.

And this how Javier found the terrain back.

And this is bm008 in perfect order in June 2020.

And this how bm008 looked right after the fire. We see a damaged marker but Javier is not 100% sure that it is caused by the fire. But shortly before, it was still in good shape.

I’m reluctant to say it but for us, as border-enthusiasts, such a fire offers also opportunities as I experienced on 12-9-2012  at the other side of the Pyrenees. An impenetrable maquis-terrain burnt to the ground and could be easily explored afterwards.,,,

By the way: Javier is a remarkable man. Living in Irùn, he published in 1995 a profound study of the bordermarkers 1-196 (see my literature-list, Javier agreed to make it accessible as a pdf-download). He still visits every single year almost every bordermarker from 1 to 235.

Another cross found near bm002

We know that there are several crosses engraved close to bm002 and bm007. See this webpage on my website. They are older than the current bordermarkers and marked the border when there were not yet numbered markers. Close to bm002 there are two crosses engraved in the rocks but Robert Darrieumerlou recently found a third one on the rock 2 meters behind bm002.

He shows that third one on my compilation of the pictures of the Darrieu’s. But you can see this third cross far better on his own picture on this webpage. It seems so visible that one wonders how other searchers could miss it (but I didn’t find any of them).
And Robert found another unnumbered cross, between bm001 and 002 and the altitude of 245 meters: see this page