And perhaps some pigs were flying by at the same time? I think a reality check is much needed now.
Found Deceased Spain - Esther Dingley, from UK, missing in the Pyrenees, Nov 2020 #7
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And perhaps some pigs were flying by at the same time? I think a reality check is much needed now.
RedHaus
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That's an awesome pic, too @OEJ-JEO...
I think what struck me with the latest one from Federico_A is I could actually see an ascension path from Spain, where she may have been before she fell... and then where she may have landed. The photo you have here has all that French side of the pic in shadow... and Federico_A's did not. Please let me know if I missing something...
No, you're quite right. I thought Federico_A had just reposted the picture I linked to last week, but they're in different light, and taken from slightly different positions:
http://ekladata.com/WWb9HwNw8jBiIpJ8GV5FDG2vOvw.jpg
http://ekladata.com/z-vIwgLw3EsFXf7c2jtFPHWzqMA.jpg
Both are from this gallery:
http://robertetlespyrenees.kazeo.com/pic-de-sacroux-14-08-2011-gallery63634
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A lot of time is unaccounted for, and without gps/photo info from her phone, permanently so. As in, there's no way to know *when* she arrived at that high-ish place on the mountains from which she fell. Neither on what day or at what time of day. Neither has the public been given an actual first hand report of a full list of belongings found, and where, and in what condition.
A completely speculative possible scenario: she trekked up on a route that looked manageable until it started becoming not that. For whatever reason (despite what Dan had to say on the matter) she still thought going on & up was preferable than going all the way back down or far enough back to take an alternative route. Perhaps she had dawdled taking photos & it was already getting too late to make it that far back & then on to a safe place for the night. Perhaps the way seemed difficult but not impossible, & worth trying.
Whatever the reasoning, perhaps she ended up, yes, trapped -or simply limited, by a combination of time & circumstances. And decided to camp essentially where she was. So, took off her microspikes. And fell at some point of beginning to set up camp.
Since we don't know where the yellow mat was found in relation to her remains or otherwise, there's no way of knowing where it was when she fell. She could have been holding it. It could have been laid out, then moved down the mountain by wind or melt or animals. It could have been in it's tote bag & torn open later by animals trying to get to the food in her backpack........
Grouse
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Have to say I'd genuinely not considered the possibility of ED setting up camp up on the peak somewhere, but while it may fit some of the facts (like the mat being out/ tent missing if that is indeed the case, I have my doubts) she wouldn't have been likely to have fallen with her rucksack still on in that scenario.
I think we may have come to the point now where we'll need to wait until more information comes to light.
That's an awesome pic, too @OEJ-JEO...
Please let me know if I missing something...
Somewhere here in Spain is where she climbed to the Pic de la Glere?
On the French side, she was 30 metres below the ridge/peak.
Final search area in white oval per Dan's maps
Corresponds to this - roughly. Where ever her body was found should be visible from Dan's final search area. Therefore, from my perspective, she was farther away from the Port de la Glere.
I don't think that follows. Your white oval is to the east of the Pic de la Glère's northern spur, north of the ridge that runs between Pic de la Glère and Pic de la Montagnette. Nothing west of that spur would have been found in DC's search.
Edit: I've just realised we're saying the same thing. The problem is that that DC's map was uploaded to facebook before the skull fragment was found, so he'd already searched the area in your map and found nothing. The skull fragment was then found to the west of that spur on the scree below the Port.
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RickshawFan
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Let me take this up, so we don’t all end up in a soup of yellow tent!
The “tent” was not actually a tent in the way you’d normally think of a tent. I’m not sure even why the dossier calls it a tent. It’s a tarp tent. It’s one layer of very light fabric, either nylon or that meshy stuff to keep mosquitoes out.
You basically use tarptents in the woods or a very sheltered place. In summer. They are very rudimentary shelter. They will offer some protection in summer, but almost none in cooler weather. Breezes blow right through them. There’s not a whole lot between you and rain. It might keep you from being soaked through, but you’re gonna get wet, even just from splatter.
Tarptents generally get pitched with your trekking poles. This contrasts with a tent which includes shock-corded poles and is designed to shed wind (the good ones are tested in wind tunnels). A tent for the mountains also has an outer, weather-shedding, layer called a fly, and it should have what we call a “bathtub” floor. The floor goes up the sides a few inches.
You can also use a tarp for shelter. This is just one, waterproofed, layer. It has no sides; it’s just a sheet of waterproof fabric. These are used for winter, but also year round. This is what I use. The advantage (apart from super light weight), is that it can be pitched using what nature provides. In a place like those high Pyrenees, on cool or wet or windy nights, I’d pitch it low low low to the ground between rocks. I can use found items to stake it out or hold the ends up so it looks like a roof. It would actually be quite warm, and if I picked my spot right, there wouldn’t be a stream coming down the middle of it. You put a ground cloth down and put your sleeping bag on top of it. I have been under mine in a blizzard, drenching rain, too much sun, the bank of a river being heavily patrolled by LE…..
IMO it’s helpful in this case not to think of ED’s shelter as a tent, which is why I’ve gone into this. It’s not a significant piece of equipment. It would easily blow off, get dragged away, be impossible to set up; it won’t do a thing for you in the Pyrenees in November.
I’m not sure where it gets us to know whether ED had it with her or not, but maybe someone can elucidate this.
IMO waaaaay too much is being made of this tarptent because it’s yellow. Note, by contrast, how little attention was paid to the inadequate footwear, which WS brought up in the first month, and which now is being proffered by LE as very significant to the outcome. Anyway, the media started with the “yellow tent meme” in Week One. It took off because it seemed to be the only bright item in ED’s gear, dark apparel being one reason ED couldn’t be seen against rock (this proved prophetic). The media has never since let up on this yellow thingummybob. In the process, they made the it much more significant than it should be. IMO it’s completely irrelevant in this case; just a media theme.
The only possible role it might have played is if a bad actor gave it a nefarious use. IMO this was never on the table for me, but no telling where LE or others were with it. They may well have thought of it as some kind of clue. But lately, LE seems to have moved away from the “yellow tent meme”, so maybe it’s a good time to throw it into the “insignificant detail” pile.
All my opinion.
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A bivy is basically a waterproof sleeping bag. You put your sleeping bag in it. Your face gets wet, as will you if you emerge from your sleeping bag. These are used a lot by climbers.
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I hope this helps with the whole “yellow tent” discussion.
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I still favour her coming up to the Port de Glere from France given Dan believed this from speaking to her and from her last text. I just wonder if she headed up the wrong way by mistake, looking at the wrong col. The path was likely part covered in snow approaching the Port de Glere according to the keeper of the Refuge of Venasque*. If so, it was far easier to go wrong.
Here's an image of what the approach looks like in partial snow and the route up to the pass is completely covered + looks difficult. Unlikely there were any footprints to help, because it was out of season and lockdown. There was another quote from the keeper at the Venasque refuge saying busy in Summer you might get 20 people through a day, so the chances there were people treading ahead of Esther, the day she came up, are remote.
So perhaps she even headed up the left (East) of the Pic de Glere - in the lower right quadrant of Otto's white oval - near the 'stepped ramp' mentioned before, which I presume is the blocky spine-like feature to the left of the Pic peak. There are big drops to the right into a large gully and lots of ledges. But we just don't have enough info.
* Missing British hiker could have fallen in snow says expert after remains including skull are found | Daily Mail Online
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As Touch pointed out to you on Thread 6 page 36, she was using something from the Thermarest Neoair line, and these have quite a high R-value (I think 4.2 and up) and are considered suitable to 3 or 4 seasons, depending on the exact model. I see where this idea coming from, though. I, too, have experienced the sleeping-on-an-air-mattress-indoors-and-freezing-my-*advertiser censored*-off, but you cannot compare a random inflatable indoor mattress to specialized mountaineering gear. (Yes, I still recommend to add an extra cloased-cell-foam below, if temperatures will be very low and do always carry a repair kit, if that type of a mattress gets just one hole, you're dead).
But yeah, it is like actual winter gear.
Best Backpacking Sleeping Pad of 2021
Edit: or is there really a problem with these? I personally have a model by Exped and that one is self-inflating, so I have never slept on the Thermarest, but as far as I have seen, Thermarest ones are stated as superior to mine and mine was warm during winter camping.
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Federico_A
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That view of the cairn and grassy saddle is actually on the Spanish side - seems they came down that way.
To sum up: on the French side there's no path at all, but it is possible, with an ice-axe, to pick your way to the top up the scree and the crumbling couloir and the crumbling summit slope (the latter two sections almost vertical).
On the Spanish side, there seems to be cairns indicating a route upwards from the main path, but you have to find your way up the crumbling summit slope yourself.
To fall onto the French side (which I believe is confirmed) she would either have had to reach the summit from the Spanish side and then venture down the crumbly couloir on the French side, or else venture up the scree on the French side and not make it to the summit.
I still don't believe Esther did it either way. The summit section is actual climbing and even these guys with an ice-axe were having trouble, and, significantly, it took both of them to do it. And we would have to believe that DC made it up there himself all the while assuming that Esther was not one to leave the path. No, it doesn't compute.
I'm not even sure why we're considering that she ascended Glere. I think it was just sloppy journalism that made it sound as if she did. Am I the only one who thinks "400m below Glere" means horizontally rather than vertically?
Federico_A
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I've come to realise that those Google images bear little relation to reality. All the rough edges are flattened out and everything looks easy. Even the summit of Glere is rendered as a flat table-top. Fact is, that mountain is all vicious crags higher up and it's definitely a climb, not a hike.
Heading up the scree and ascending Glere by mistake, thinking it was the way to the col, just doesn't seem feasible. There's no path on the scree and no one in his right mind would step onto it unless they had that carefully planned summit-ascent in mind. The main path up to the col is obvious and easy - higher up there are specially constructed ramps. Ordinary day-trippers do it. In any case, I still don't believe she went through France because hiking was verboten and she would have been able to phone home along the way.
I'm back to point X as the simplest thing that explains everything, and there seems to be no case against it.
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RedHaus
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RSBM
OK, @Federico_A, I have gone back to Thread #6 for the X you marked on the image of Pic dl Glere from the Spain side. And I remapped my drawing (from earlier today) on the image @OEJ-JEO originally posted, to match up with your X location. Let me know if I am off... But I agree that a lower elevation of ED's ascent from the Spain side makes more sense than her trying for the summit of Pic dl G, which looks hideous to climb with her equipment. That said, I have identified on my graphic a possible ledge or hidden spot of boulders just on the French side beyond your X, where ED might have fallen from at some point - to her death or post mortem as I've postulated.
Does this work to further describe a possible route and final location of ED's body?
RickshawFan
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I'm not convinced the approach up the PicdelaG is up the slope from the Spain side. It might actually be difficult there, for a reason we can't see.
The usual trail is up that spur that goes down to the Port. You can see the tread at its base. I'm trusting my blogger for this. He's very clear the ascent starts in the Port at the northwest and it goes like stairs.
Montesymasdebucuesa: 42-14. PICO DE LA GLERA POR LA ARISTA SUDOESTE. 6-6-14.
It might not matter in the grand scheme of things, but the triangular distance might be important.
ED's express destination was the PortdelaG, not the PicdelaG. IMO she saw the crazy rocks on the France-facing cliff and decided what she wanted. If she chose to head up the Spain cutof, she had no way to know about the cliffiness or the steep scree slopes or the valley below.... You'd find that out AFTER you got to the Port.
RickshawFan
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You are correct in thinking there are currently Thermarest NeoAir mattresses with a decent R-value (temperature rating). However, the Thermarest NeoAir line has had a range of R-values over the years, including, like, close to irrelevant. They sprang leaks really easily, too. They were also a lot less expensive than the higher value ones, by maybe $100?
This is maybe a better way to get at how unmatched ED's gear was for the conditions. This is the kit for a female backpacker in the Pyrenees in mid-November 2020: November 2020 - One Woman Walks She carries a much smaller pack of the women's version of ED's. Yet, look at her sleeping stuff! And that's a real tent.
PS: Expeds are NIIIIIICE! IMO
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RickshawFan
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The southeast approach seems to be very unusual. It's crazy rocky. The Google earth photo is very misleading. I also don't think ED could have gotten up there from France.
If ED had been climbing in snow, she'd have been breaking trail and wearing her microspikes on those lightweight, well-worn shoes, just to make a step. Per LE she did not have on microspikes: they were in her pack.
The southeast approach, with photos, is in this blog: Montesymasdebucuesa: 42-14. PICO DE LA GLERA POR LA ARISTA SUDOESTE. 6-6-14.
RickshawFan
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I'm confused. ED is said to have been found between the Port and the Pic. That would weigh against an approach from the east.
GoogleEarth smooths out the Pic. It's nasty rocky. I have 't seen any trace anywhere of an approach to the Pic from due south. It's likely waaaaaay more wicked that it looks in the first image.
RedHaus
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OK @RickshawFan. I finally understand your blogger, Montesymasdebucuesa: 42-14. PICO DE LA GLERA POR LA ARISTA SUDOESTE. 6-6-14..
So I reconfigured my graphic yet again (#3,), with the north(west) ascent from Port dl Glere up Pic dl Glere, per your reference to the blogger's statement: “The Pico de la Glera has an easy ascent from the Puerto de la Glera through a stepped ramp on the north face that leaves you practically at the top”. He took the Southeast route.
I doubt ED made it to the top, as does @Federico_A (per his X on insert image). And I think instead of summiting, ED stopped at that large boulder / ledge I have circled in red... from there she may have fallen to her death or fell post mortem to the next boulder / ledge I circled in yellow, concealed from the port and scree field below.
So I reconfigured my graphic yet again (#3,
), with the north(west) ascent from Port dl Glere up Pic dl Glere, per your reference to the blogger's statement: “The Pico de la Glera has an easy ascent from the Puerto de la Glera through a stepped ramp on the north face that leaves you practically at the top”. He took the Southeast route.I doubt ED made it to the top, as does @Federico_A (per his X on insert image). And I think instead of summiting, ED stopped at that large boulder / ledge I have circled in red... from there she may have fallen to her death or fell post mortem to the next boulder / ledge I circled in yellow, concealed from the port and scree field below.
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