Tag Archives: bm330bis

Carlos & Conchita are done: all bordermarkers visited!

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Carlos and Conchita Roca have succeeded today in their goal: visiting all esfr-bordermarkers.

The one of today – 330bis – was the last of a 4-weeks sprint to finish their project. From Bielsa / Aragnouet (325-329 and 322) to Refuge Wallon (313 & 314) to Lescun (272) to Col de Somport (296) to Le Plan (329 & 330) and finally to Benasque for no. 330bis.

Those were not the easy ones, each requiring one day of strenuous hiking and climbing. As usual with the ‘chasseurs des bornes’, they kept the difficult ones for the end. Bm330bis was done together with their son David and his ‘novia’ Noella. Also Pierre Gallart joined them and he took this photo:

 

Carlos and Conchita are now very happy and also relieved to have fulfilled their quest. It took them 10 years to do. And though as pensionados still in good health and shape, the years take their toll anyway. Congratulations for both of you. Now you can – as Carlos told me – retire for the second time and return to the status of ‘normal tourists’.

By the way, they are not the only ones to finish this year:  Sébastien Marc has only 1 or 2 bordermarkers to go and Pierre Gallart about 17 markers. And than there is Didier Roux who hopes to finish in october with his last three markers. See this blog-post.

The Bis of 330bis painted

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A recent discovery of Corinne Gourgeonnet: besides the bordercross of 330(-bis) a large ‘Bis’ has been painted in recent years.

A ‘Bis’ because there are 2 crosses 330:
– one at its original location ± 4km west of this one on another border pass (engraved in the 19th century)
– and this one at Port de Clarabide, engraved in 2003. The original cross was considered to be lost or unfindable around 2000 and so a new one was engraved at Port de Clarabide.

But the original 330 still existed at the Port d’Aygues Tortes which was called Port de Clarabide on old maps. And that’s where the Treaty prescribed the engraving of bm330. But the toponyms of both passes changed on the maps in later years. And that explains the confusion.

See also this post and this webpage.

So the new 330 is in fact a second 330-bordercross and should be referred to as 330bis. That’s why the ‘Bis’ has been painted. But who is responsible for the painting? We think it is Jean-Paul Laborie – commissioner of the Pyrenean border committee – who talked about it on our joint trip to the new ADR-bordermarkers in 2019: see this post.

And indeed, it was Jean-Paul Laborie who did the job, I guess in 2020. He wrote me that he took a chisel and red paint to the Port. But his chisel proved not to be sufficient for this type of hard granite. He could only engrave the “bis” rudimentarily and paint it red. He was glad to see on Corinne’s picture that it is still in good shape. He sent me this picture with the ironical subtitle “the engraver of the peaks in his works”:

 

Amazing: the original bm330 rediscovered

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September 14, 2012. Jean-Paul Laborie climbed to Port d’Aygues Tortes in freezing weather. He had a mission: finding the original bm330. We know that this bordercross was engraved in the 19th century at Port de Clarabide and nowadays  there is still a cross 330 at this col. But that cross was engraved in 2003, the previous one was unfindable.
Jean-Paul Laborie is a member of the Pyrenean bordercommittee. Apparently bm330 puzzled him and at some point he got a brilliant idea. Could it be that the toponomy of the borderpasses as shown on the maps have changed in the course of years? And that the original Port de Clarabide was somewhere else? He compared old and contemporary maps. And his hypothesis was confirmed! The contemporary Port d’Aygues Tortes used to be Port de Clarabide. And that’s where Jean-Paul found the original bm330.