Saturday 11 September 2021: a very special day for Corinne Gourgeonnet. After 6 years, she completed her quest to find and photograph each and every bordermarker along the French-Spanish border.

The last one to do was well chosen: bm311 at Col de Sobe. A touristic train

brought her to Lac d’Artouste which left 2 hours of climbing to bm311. She was however not alone: she brought her son Arthur (see http://blog.grpdesbf.nl/?s=arthur) ánd Michel Molia (see: http://blog.grpdesbf.nl/?s=molia), the famous discoverer of the 408III-IV-submarkers. I joined them halfway on their climb and together we reached bm311.

At the spot we celebrated the event, Corinne opening a large bottle of champagne

and together we toasted to Corinne’s achievement.

Corinne was moved and that is understandable. She has enjoyed so much all her adventures along the border, mostly done as solo-trips which has been an experience in itself. And now it is all finished, as if you have reached the destination of a long, long pilgrimage…

For Michel, it was also a final trip. He is eighty years old and it’s been enough for mountain walking. In a way, he celebrated his own farewell trip with the same champagne.

By completing all esfr-bordermarkers, Corinne enters the Gallery of Honor of men and women who have done them all. She is the third woman who has accomplished this and the first one to do them solo. The list is now:

1. Javier and María-Jesús Sancho-Esnaola
2. Charles and Josette Darrieu
3. Jacques Koleck
4. Myself
5. Michel Molia
6. Alain Gillodes
7. Corinne Gourgeonnet

Was this Corinne’s farewell to the bordermarkers? Well, she confided to me in secret that she thinks of doing a multi-day stretch of my GRPdesBF-trail next year. And Arthur stated casually that he will start ‘doing’ bordermarkers when he is grown up. We will hold him to it 🙂