Tag Archives: Sébastien Marc

The current ‘competitors’ on the ESFR-border

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Well, it’s of course no competition but the drive to find all esfr-bordermarkers is something most of us share.

A list of those who did them all, can be found on this webpage.
Some have their own list of bordermarkers but the one I use is explained on this page and a excel-checklist to use is on this page

But who are still in the race at this moment? Let’s list them.

Didier Roux
I wrote about his quest in this post and he expected to complete in 2024. However he failed to reach bm424-425 and still couldn’t find bm85bis. He will try again in october 2025.

 

 

Carlos and Conchita Roca
My friends from Barcelona work steadily on their progress. They hope to finish in 2025 and have still 14 markers to do. These are not the easy ones and that is what I see a lot: the most difficult markers are left for the final stage.

 

 

 

Sébastien Marc (see this post)
This very sporty young man has also 14 bordermarkers  tp do (mostly in the central Pyrenees) and he expects to finish in 2025.

 

 

 

 

 

 


Pierre Gallart
His accidental meeting with Carlos and Conchita Roca in 2024 brought this extraordinary man to my attention. At the same time Jerôme Loubière informed me about him.
He is extraordinary because he is the first person – as far as I know – who tried to do all bordermarkers in one go! He undertook that project in 2022 in 74 days and describes it on his website
And there is this short article and you can listen to an interview (in Spanish).

He did photograph ± 95% of the bordermarkers which leaves 40 markers still to do. Missing those 40 markers had various reasons, including an attack from a wild boar (!). He intends to write a book about his adventure and publish it in 2025. Meanwhile he is working on doing the missed bordermarkers (I guess).

Jerome Loubière (see this post)
This is the cousin of Sébastien Marc and he reported me that he did 68€% of all markers which would mean 228 markers still to do, a lot of them in the Basque country. But he already sailed to bm602.

 

 

I wish them all good luck in 2025 and remember: it’s not a competition, it’s all about the joy of exploring the Pyrenees and the concern for bordermarkers as cultural-historical monuments.

Another new kid on the block: Jean Marc Dumont

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A tip from Corinne Gourgeonnet: Jean Marc Dumont, a young man of 64 who is also aspiring to do all esfr-markers. He once started as a co-walker along the bordermarkers and now continues on his own with impressive trips on his MTB or by foot.


As a former air traffic controller, he retired at an early age (the ultimate dream of every Frenchman, so it seems) and never regretted that a single moment.
Now he has covered 74% of all esfr-bm’s (using the “parfait” excel-sheet on this page) and he expects to finish next year. That implies that he can well be the first to complete the esfr-bordermarkers after Corinne in 2021 and before Carlos & Conchita Roca, Sébastien Marc and Jérôme Loubière.
So far, only bm425 has given serious problems, getting in rough terrain and in fact in danger.

Special notice: he has his own mini-camper for his bm-outings: the MarKomobile which made me instantaneously jealous.

No blog, no website but you can still follow his adventures and progress on Strava. Good luck Jean Marc and let us know when you are approaching the finish.

A new spring, a new bm-season

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The weather is softening, the snow is melting and the days are getting longer. The time has come to plan new Pyrenees-trips along the bordermarkers. Who are the main players in the heroïc field of finding all esfr-markers? A list of the current 9 men/women who did them all, can be found on this page and more elaborate on this webpage.

Let’s start with my friends Carlos and Conchita Roca from Barcelona.

They have made significant progress in the last years including finishing the Pyrénées Orientales and almost the western Pyrenees. But now they are facing the long hikes in the high mountains of the central Pyrenees. We can check their results on this map.
If I import their results in an excel-file, they have still 55 bm’s to go = 92% done

Then we have the two cousins Sébastien Marc and Jérôme Loubière (see this post).

Sébastien (left) has covered 90% of all esfr-bordermarkers and considering his young age and athletic fitness, I think he will finish first.

Finally, Jérôme Loubière (right) has a slower but not necessarily less persistent pace. I estimate his progress at being 60%.

Count your bordermarkers in Excel

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In the previous post, I introduced Sébastien Marc and his cousin Jérôme Loubière, the new kids on the block. Sébastien surprised me a bit later with an excel-sheet of how he keeps track of the bordermarkers he has covered so far. Hereunder a picture of his sheet:

(You can download this sheet (his current status) with this link and the same sheet but empty for his data with this link.)

Sébastien likes to make a difference between the markers numbered 1 to 602 and all the extra markers like submarkers, double markers, and the Llivia-markers. I remember that also Carlos and Conchita Roca prefer that distinction. So he included a sub-sheet for these extra markers:

But for me all bordermarkers “are created equal” and – inspired by Sébastien – I made my own excel-template with all markers on one sheet. It looks like this:

(As an example, I have entered in this sheet all the markers I did so far in my ‘second round’. At one point I decided to do all markers at least twice (with at least one year difference). Why? Why not? You can see that I have still to (re)do 69 bordermarkers, all planned for 2022.)

Do you want an empty template to use for yourself? Download it with this link.
You might report your own results as a comment to this post. I’d love to see how far you are in doing all esfr-bordermarkers.

Sébastien and Jérôme: two cousins, two ‘ramborneurs’

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I used to receive once in a while pictures of esfr-bordermarkers of Sébastian Marc and I wondered who he was and if he aimed at ‘doing’ all the esfr-bordermarkers. To my surprise, he happened to be not a retired sexagenarian or septuagenarian but a young and athletic man with a passion to find and photograph every esfr-bordermarker.

Sébastien is 44 years old and works in logistics. Being a devoted Pyrenees-walker since long, he started with ultra-trailrunning in the Pyrenees 10 years ago. And then he discovered the esfr-bordermarkers and that became his next goal. He has covered ± 75% of all esfr-bordermarkers and remembers bm542 as being the most difficult to reach, bm510 as the most beautiful, and bm143 as unfindable until now.

But he is not alone: he dragged his cousin Jérôme Loubière into this passion and Jérome started his own project to do them as well.

Jérôme is 45 years old and a mathematics and language teacher. He also mentions the bordermarkers near Coustouges (bm536-524) as being the most difficult and thinks that bm601 is the most beautiful with its view over the Mediterranean. He has done ± 50% of all bordermarkers.

They often go together for one or two days but in order to catch up with Sébastien, Jérôme also makes trips alone or with his family. They call themselves ‘ramborneurs’, I supposed a combination of ‘Rambo’ and ‘borne’ but it happens to be a less testosterone-driven combination as Sébastien pointed out later: ‘les randonneurs qui cherchent des bornes’.

And how far are they? Well, Sébastien is way ahead of Jérôme with 524 bordermarkers covered so far while Jérôme has done 363 markers until now. They both refer to the total number of 602 bordermarkers but in fact, there are a lot more markers. In my definition and counting (see this page), there are 723 markers that fit somehow in the alpha-numerical sequence between no. 1 (Basque country) and 602 (Mediterranean coast). There are 6 markers missing (see this page)
That leaves 717 individual markers to be photographed to enter the list of the ones who did them all (see this post).

And to finish: Sébastien has even baptized a stone pillar on his property as marker 603, to prove his devotion. He is not the only one to have a personal bordermarker in the garden: see Serge Poncet’s bm583bis.