Found Deceased Spain - Esther Dingley, from UK, missing in the Pyrenees, November 2020 #2

[otto]

If she planned to return on the 25th to the Campervan, she would have 2 nights of bivouac.

Nov 22, 23 and 24 in the mountains, return to the van on Nov 25.

 

[otto]

To me, this quote from the LBT press release implies that ED was intending to stay at the refuge on 22 Nov.

"Esther specified her route from the summit we spoke on. She had two hours of daylight to reach a refuge winter room, a distance that would have taken her less than an hour."​

That's what we know. Is that where her partner expected her to be overnight on Nov 24/25, or on Nov 22/23? It makes a big difference in terms of Trip Plan.

Why does the search area include Port de Glère? Who provided that information and why?

 

[Skiptolou]

There are further references that ED's route included the Port de Glère in this Daily Mail article:

When she went missing, she was thought to have been in the middle of a hike of several days, taking a circular route from Port de la Glere to Port de Venasque via Pico Salvaguardia.

Having set off from Benasque that Saturday morning, Esther was believed to be planning to spend Sunday night at the Refuge de Venasque before looping back to Port de la Glere and Benasque.
​

I can't piece together a circular loop that includes these points somehow.

 

[otto]

There are further references that ED's route included the Port de Glère in this Daily Mail article:

When she went missing, she was thought to have been in the middle of a hike of several days, taking a circular route from Port de la Glere to Port de Venasque via Pico Salvaguardia.

Having set off from Benasque that Saturday morning, Esther was believed to be planning to spend Sunday night at the Refuge de Venasque before looping back to Port de la Glere and Benasque.
​

I can't piece together a circular loop that includes these points somehow.

It sounds like the route was Pic de Sauvegarde, Port de Venaque, Refuge de Venasque, Port de Glère via Lac de la Montagnette, and then I suppose back to the refuge since there doesn't seem to be a path or trail between Port de Venasque and Port de Glère.

 

[otto]

There were three nights. Could she have planned two nights at the refuge and one night near the Port de Glère?

Nov 22: planned to be at the refuge?
Nov 23:
Nov 24:

What was her trip plan?

 

[Skiptolou]

Plus, she was 'in the middle of a hike' according to the Daily Mail article, having set off from Plan d'Estan, where Mr Balarin dropped her off on Saturday. So she would have already spent the night somewhere on 21 Nov as part of this trip. It's unlikely she spent it at the Refuge dV as LE found no evidence of her being there. Where else could she have stayed on 21 Nov?

 

[Hatty]

Because Port de Venasque is literally the border line between Spain and France. Wherever it was that she saw the skier at 3pm, she was pretty close to the border.

Personally I agree with you and think it’s more likely she spent 21st on the Spanish side, but we can’t just assume that as being a fact.

Spot on.

The ABC of investigation...

Assume nothing
Believe Nothing
Challenge EVERYTHING!

 

[PeggyHenry]

She posted every day about her adventures from Nov 4 until Nov 20. But the Nov 21 and 22 are like marketing ads for their doggie books.
She just stops sharing information and pictures.

I find that curious. She is not communicating with the blog’s “audience.”

Her Nov 4 postings are both intriguing. One expresses her negative reaction to Covid lockdown...and the other seems to indicate that this started as a 4 day trip. That’s a lot of reluctance to c9me home.

“What are you doing here, Esther? Why?” is one sentence.

And considering that the end of her adventures meant going back to the situation she found unhealthy for her. And on Nov 18 she talks about how challenging herself keeps her from being “scared about other things in my life.”

Highly interesting .... her lack of ‘hiking’ posts on 21st and 22nd. An interruption to her normal routines. Who did the doggy book ads? Could it have been either DC or ED?
Interesting to compare the FB posting routines with analysis of her hiking route information. Presumably her Facebook posts are posted at the end of her daily hikes.

 

[Skiptolou]

Highly interesting .... her lack of ‘hiking’ posts on 21st and 22nd. An interruption to her normal routines. Who did the doggy book ads? Could it have been either DC or ED?
Interesting to compare the FB posting routines with analysis of her hiking route information. Presumably her Facebook posts are posted at the end of her daily hikes.

I agree that the lack of a FB post on 21 Nov is very inconsistent and possibly relevant. She did post on Instagram that day, but she may have habitually posted on FB in the evening and on Instagram during the day (just thinking out loud here!). Add to this the strange selfie from the Pic de Sauvegarde which is so very similar to the ones she took the previous day and the fact that there is no information about where she spent the night on the 21st. Perhaps she disappeared on 21 Nov after all. The whole thing just doesn't make sense.

 

[Hatty]

I believe it's difficult to discuss alternatives to ED having met with an accident. Partly due to the lack of information. Also to do so would feel like minimsing any trauma she may have suffered and we'd be left feeling so terrible even heartless. It's also difficult to do without making comments about her relationship with DC and worrying about breaking the rules.
Did the French police visit DC at home and have an intimate talk with him when searching the couples social media? If so they may have a deeper insight to the situation that underpinned Captain B's outspoken comments to the press.
I would like to ask has ED done anything like this before, or anything related to it e.g. going missing for any length of time, or cutting communication. Do we know?
Was she feeling emotionally suffocated by their rural lifestyle and needing to escape it?
We know she didn't want to stop travelling, but why?
Many other questions.

The police will have asked all these questions and many many more. Building up a detailed victim profile is bread and butter policing in a misper enquiry. But also, in my experience, due to all sorts of reasons, victims do things nobody could have foreseen.

 

[Hatty]

I agree that the lack of a FB post on 21 Nov is very inconsistent and possibly relevant. She did post on Instagram that day, but she may have habitually posted on FB in the evening and on Instagram during the day (just thinking out loud here!). Add to this the strange selfie from the Pic de Sauvegarde which is so very similar to the ones she took the previous day and the fact that there is no information about where she spent the night on the 21st. Perhaps she disappeared on 21 Nov after all. The whole thing just doesn't make sense.

I can’t find any mention on this thread about ED’s personal FB page. Esther Dingley (Durham University). I’m a new member and have checked the rules but can’t see that it can’t be mentioned - just no direct quotes. Apologies if I am wrong.

From this page a lot can be learned about Esther, who very much wears her heart on her sleeve.
She makes several posts about missing her dogs and also about feeling alone. The last post is on 18th November which initially led me to believe the dogs were with her on her trip.

She comments on 13th November about having undertaken a solo hike last year with the dogs “for a slightly complicated reason “ and mentions the need to keep herself safe - because the dogs were with her and depended on her to do so.

What strikes me as a little sad is that not many of her friends seems to comment or “like” her many long updates.

 

[PeggyHenry]

I agree that the lack of a FB post on 21 Nov is very inconsistent and possibly relevant. She did post on Instagram that day, but she may have habitually posted on FB in the evening and on Instagram during the day (just thinking out loud here!). Add to this the strange selfie from the Pic de Sauvegarde which is so very similar to the ones she took the previous day and the fact that there is no information about where she spent the night on the 21st. Perhaps she disappeared on 21 Nov after all. The whole thing just doesn't make sense.

I guess a Facebook post would done be in the evening when you can sit down, relax and compose a summary of your days adventures. An Instagram post can be done very quickly and likely to be an instant capture of a scene or maybe you might just post up a few images later in the evening, after your Fb post.

So if E doesn’t Facebook post on 21 st and 22 nd it’s for a reason... nothing to report / not in the right frame of mind / no means of posting etc.


It’s almost as if the gap in posting is filled by the doggy book ads.
I have often though that she may have disappeared earlier .. e.g 21 st but for the Vigo sighting.
I would have thought we’d get a Facebook post on 21 st recounting her lift with Ballarin and grandson and hike. Does this indicate no phone signal on 21st evening ? After all, she ascended the Pic de S and did an Instagram post. Then very late start on 22nd ... seems like the possibility of an “interruption / disruption “ to her life after summiting on 21st. When was BBC article released publicising her travels?. What suddenly prompts doggy ads? Do they need to be done quickly on those days to ensure maximum sales resulting from BBC publicity?
Everything seems to change around 21 st.. the late summit on 22nd almost indicates a possible liaison with someone.

 

[The_Investigator]

She posted every day about her adventures from Nov 4 until Nov 20. But the Nov 21 and 22 are like marketing ads for their doggie books.
She just stops sharing information and pictures.

I find that curious. She is not communicating with the blog’s “audience.”

Her Nov 4 postings are both intriguing. One expresses her negative reaction to Covid lockdown...and the other seems to indicate that this started as a 4 day trip. That’s a lot of reluctance to c9me home.

“What are you doing here, Esther? Why?” is one sentence.

And considering that the end of her adventures meant going back to the situation she found unhealthy for her. And on Nov 18 she talks about how challenging herself keeps her from being “scared about other things in my life.”

Great analysis. Great questions to be answered. So,.. What are your conclusions then? That she was scared to go back, scared to communicated on-line anymore? I'm not sure she posted the dog book stuff anyway,... think that was a filler by someone else to try to explain away her lack of posting. Phone off, posting stopped. Had she something else to occupy her? <modsnip>

 

[PeggyHenry]

I can’t find any mention on this thread about ED’s personal FB page. Esther Dingley (Durham University). I’m a new member and have checked the rules but can’t see that it can’t be mentioned - just no direct quotes. Apologies if I am wrong.

From this page a lot can be learned about Esther, who very much wears her heart on her sleeve.
She makes several posts about missing her dogs and also about feeling alone. The last post is on 18th November which initially led me to believe the dogs were with her on her trip.

She comments on 13th November about having undertaken a solo hike last year with the dogs “for a slightly complicated reason “ and mentions the need to keep herself safe - because the dogs were with her and depended on her to do so.

What strikes me as a little sad is that not many of her friends seems to comment or “like” her many long updates.

Esther does sometimes mention things that she doesn’t feel she can expose publicly ( quite understandably) such as ‘complicated reason’ or clearing her head about things that scare her etc.
This perhaps informs us there’s a lot of things that occupy her mind, going on behind the scenes. We all have stuff going on behind the public facade of our lives but it troubles me to think there are things that ‘scare’ her. However the insta photo on 21 at show a lovely natural smile of a woman enjoying her trip

 

[The_Investigator]

Nov 22, 23 and 24 in the mountains, return to the van on Nov 25.

Yes, agree with you. I think she returned to the van, but with someone.

 

[jsoap]

This is the map of the French side - the official paths are in purple (the red line are the trails that I followed in 2014).
It appears that the original plan was to loop from Benasque to Port de la Glere, then to Port de Venasque, the Pic and then back to Benasque. However on the 16th the way to Port de la Glere was blocked with snow, hence the trip back to the van. So there would be little point in hiking from Port de Venasque to Port de la Glere since the route back to Benasque would still be blocked. Also, without local knowledge, it's unusual to see hikers go "off piste".
edit: looking at the maps, the initial route when she returned back to the van, was no where near this area. The maps in the newspapers at the time are totally wrong.

 

[CoverMeCagney]

I think the plan was to do the loop anti clockwise - Sauvegarde, through port, stay at refuge on 22nd, then continuing the next day round the loop.

Does anyone know how to get down from La Glere? Is there a route back to the road from there? Is the loop an upside-down U rather than a full circle?

 

[Skiptolou]

This is the map of the French side - the official paths are in purple (the red line are the trails that I followed in 2014).
It appears that the original plan was to loop from Benasque to Port de la Glere, then to Port de Venasque, the Pic and then back to Benasque. However on the 16th the way to Port de la Glere was blocked with snow, hence the trip back to the van. So there would be little point in hiking from Port de Venasque to Port de la Glere since the route back to Benasque would still be blocked. Also, without local knowledge, it's unusual to see hikers go "off piste".

@jsoap
Can you remember how long the loop from Port de la Glère to Port de Venasque (the longer, 'looped' way) took you when you walked that trail in 2014?

 

[The_Investigator]

I can’t find any mention on this thread about ED’s personal FB page. Esther Dingley (Durham University). I’m a new member and have checked the rules but can’t see that it can’t be mentioned - just no direct quotes. Apologies if I am wrong.

From this page a lot can be learned about Esther, who very much wears her heart on her sleeve.
She makes several posts about missing her dogs and also about feeling alone. The last post is on 18th November which initially led me to believe the dogs were with her on her trip.

She comments on 13th November about having undertaken a solo hike last year with the dogs “for a slightly complicated reason “ and mentions the need to keep herself safe - because the dogs were with her and depended on her to do so.

What strikes me as a little sad is that not many of her friends seems to comment or “like” her many long updates.

They both didn't have any followers, friends who appear consistently, perhaps they didn't have any real friends, they liked to just move on too often, co-dependent relationships, that excludes others? I know a few couples like that. All smiles are superficial chat, but really only just want to be a couple.

 

[Skiptolou]

<snipped for focus>

Does anyone know how to get down from La Glere? Is there a route back to the road from there? Is the loop an upside-down U rather than a full circle?

There appears to be a route from Benasque to Port de la Glère. It is described here.

ED could have planned to do the loop anti-clockwise, ending at Port de la Glère and making her way back to Benasque from there.

ETA: I've just noticed @jsoap's post mentioning that route had been blocked by snow on 16 Nov. Could it have reopened a week later?