I do wonder though where all those people were. It's one thing for many to be on the trail up towards the Pic de Sauveguarde, but would there be many, if any, on the circular trail from Refuge de Venasque that ED planned to take, particularly that late in the season.
Found Deceased Spain - Esther Dingley, from UK, missing in the Pyrenees, November 2020 #3
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Hunting Accidents in France
Tuesday 06 October 2020 Hunting Accidents in France
Below, part of the above article:
"...The cohabitation of hunters and walkers is regularly the subject of controversy.
In 2018, in a widely reported incident in Haute-Savoie, Mark Sutton, a 34-year-old British mountain biker and restaurant owner in the area, was accidentally shot and killed. The gunman, a 22-year-old thought the biker was a wild boar hurtling towards him.
In the same year, there was also an extraordinary incident in Avignon, when gunshot passed through the window of a TGV and hit the headrest of a, mercifully, empty seat. Passengers in the compartment thought a bomb had gone off.
Two months after the death of Mark Sutton a website was launched to identify victims of hunting accidents, called Victimeschasse, which has already documented about thirty cases.
There are now many calls in France for an end to hunting on Sundays, so that walkers can enjoy their pastime in peace and safety..." BBM
@Grouse suggested, of lakes: "...But it would also be a credible place to hide a body if there was an unfortunate encounter (eg. rogue bullet as you say). I presume they are frozen now and won't be searched until spring, if at all." BBM
November 22 was a Sunday. ED was reportedly last in communication with loved ones late afternoon. And yes, dusk and dawn are prime hunting periods.
In order to consider her body was hidden in a lake by a hunter, we would need to believe the hunter not only shot her, but dragged/carried her body to a lake – reportedly, odds-on having a shallow shore – and somehow submerged her, leaving no trace of either blood or drag marks from the point of the shooting to the lake. Of course, we really don't know what SAR/LE have found, anywhere, and with a criminal investigation underway, some information would necessarily be withheld to maintain the integrity of the investigation.
Hunting accidents happen from time to time, but they are reported as hunting accidents. How often does someone hide a hunting accident and hope that the body and evidence are never discovered? When the evidence is discovered, it becomes an intentional murder.
It seems like a bit of a stretch to think that an innocent accident would lead to a criminal act of hiding the evidence.
It seems like a bit of a stretch to think that an innocent accident would lead to a criminal act of hiding the evidence.
Grouse
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BBM - indeed in that particular scenario of her being shot accidentally I agree, traces should have been found if the search was thorough, and I agree the shores look shallow on the pictures I've seen. There have been many cases where perpetrators have managed to submerge a body though so I don't see that part as stretching credibility.
Without wanting to overthink this I stand by my view that the lakes should have been checked before they froze, and that they should be, perhaps with drones, as soon as is practical if she still hasn't been found by then.
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Grouse
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Yes I think you're probably right, though I did actually say "unfortunate encounter (eg. rogue bullet as you say)" - there are other potential scenarios of foul play as hinted at in the latest LBT release.
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It's good that we now know her plan was to hike from the summit to the refuge, to hike to the Port de Glere the following day. I'm curious how it was determined that there was no evidence that she had been at the refuge, but there is no reason to doubt this.
That leaves one possibility - something happened in the one hour between the summit and the refuge. Many of the photos in the overview of her disappearance are taken from this website: Randonnée Pic Sauvegarde 2738m – Les Topos Pyrénées par Mariano It's easy to see several places where something could have gone wrong.
I understand that it's preferable to try to blame the invisible criminal, but it's more likely that she slipped and tumbled.
BBM and snipped for focus:
Something led to a criminal investigation of ED's disappearance. IMO, we just don't know what. As others have pointed out, days of searching yielded no evidence of an accident.
We know that all possibilities are considered - they have to be, but that does not mean that there is evidence of criminal activity.
What does evidence of an accident while hiking mountain peaks look like?
There's no evidence of a body, but that is not the same as no evidence of an accident.
Spain seems to think that an accident was most likely, whereas France was leaning towards voluntary act or 3rd party actions - citing relationship troubles - in December.
We know that her partner has clarified that there were no relationship issues, so a month later France has identified 3 options. This is now consistent with Spain. Of those three options, Spain considers accident most probable.
Someone else being involved does not mean criminal activity. It could mean that she just disappeared with someone's help.
Jan 11, 2021
"French police have said there were three categories her going missing could fall under; accident, voluntary disappearance, or someone else being involved."
Esther Dingley: Missing hiker's partner 'in a world without sense'
Dec 10, 2020
We know that her partner has clarified that there were no relationship issues, so a month later France has identified 3 options. This is now consistent with Spain. Of those three options, Spain considers accident most probable.
Someone else being involved does not mean criminal activity. It could mean that she just disappeared with someone's help.
Jan 11, 2021
"French police have said there were three categories her going missing could fall under; accident, voluntary disappearance, or someone else being involved."
Esther Dingley: Missing hiker's partner 'in a world without sense'
Dec 10, 2020
"But Sergeant Lopez said it was ‘most probable’ that she had suffered an accident in the mountains.
He said: ‘When someone is lost in the mountains, the first hypothesis is always that they are in the mountains.’
French Gendarme Captain Jean-Marc Bordinaro said it is ‘not probable’ that Esther suffered an accident and her disappearance is ‘either the result of a voluntary act or as the result of someone else’s actions’.
He added that Esther and Daniel’s lives ‘were not as happy as the images posted on social media suggest’."
Search for Esther Dingley: Spanish police say it's 'impossible' and all but give up | Daily Mail OnlineHe said: ‘When someone is lost in the mountains, the first hypothesis is always that they are in the mountains.’
French Gendarme Captain Jean-Marc Bordinaro said it is ‘not probable’ that Esther suffered an accident and her disappearance is ‘either the result of a voluntary act or as the result of someone else’s actions’.
He added that Esther and Daniel’s lives ‘were not as happy as the images posted on social media suggest’."
Potentially it’s just due to the SAR and LE search not finding ED so far and the next step may just naturally be a criminal investigation to cover all eventualities.
Also, with the search checking the peak’s sides with telescopes you have the issue of people being tired and not noticing something small, lighting/shadows hiding things or changing how things look in a scope, rocks/dust covering things etc.
While I would expect something to show, at least a track of a fall/tumble, it may not be as noticeable as we imagine depending on how the rest of the scree looks.
I still believe ED’s on the mountain somewhere, she just wasn’t spotted in the search, or is somewhere a bit further away than expected.
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Ruthbullock
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Pieces of caught material on sharp rocks, areas where rocks have been displaced together, elongated marks and scores where items such as poles or karabiners from a backpack have recently scratched a rock or muddy surface. I’m not search and rescue trained- so these are probably not the only indicators that are noticable. Some evidence will obviously last longer than others- but the weather had been dry and clear- lichens would not yet have started covering marks on rocks.
Ruthbullock
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That is correct, those that followed NQ missing in Malaysia will also know they started a criminal investigation in that case as well and it was widely reported this was standard protocol rather than an indication of foul play.
Officer Dibble
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Thanks CM Cagney
I'm guessing the 5 missing people from the same area were also avid, experienced hikers.
"Five other people have gone missing in the last 15 years near where a Brit hiker vanished, officials revealed yesterday.
...
Authorities believe the Durham travel blogger, missing since late November, had an accident.
Last month Spanish lawyer Andres Funes, 61, went missing near there. Yesterday it emerged four other European hikers have vanished in the glacier-rich region since 2006. All, like Esther, were on their own. A spokesman for the French police said: “It’s not an easy terrain.”
British hiker is sixth to go missing where she vanished in last 15 years
"Five other people have gone missing in the last 15 years near where a Brit hiker vanished, officials revealed yesterday.
...
Authorities believe the Durham travel blogger, missing since late November, had an accident.
Last month Spanish lawyer Andres Funes, 61, went missing near there. Yesterday it emerged four other European hikers have vanished in the glacier-rich region since 2006. All, like Esther, were on their own. A spokesman for the French police said: “It’s not an easy terrain.”
ZaZara
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Five other people remain missing in the same area....
Esther Dingley is the last name on the list of missing hikers in the Pyrenees and the Sierra de Guara. The trail of this 37 year old British woman vanished on the 22nd of November in Benasque and less than a month later (on the 19th of December), on the other side of the mountain range the same thing happened to the Aragonese lawyer Andrés Funes, 61 years of age and resident of Huesca. Since then there has been no news of either of them, and the search operations had to be interrupted by the arrival of winter and heavy snowfall.
The cases of Esther and Andrés are not exceptional. In total, five hikers remain missing in the province of Huesca (Funes disappeared in the French valley of Aspe and it is the Gendarmerie that is handling the case), some of them since 2006. The police archives hold the files of German Reinhard Kulosa, Belgian François Dasnois, Danish Michel Nielsen and Spanish Ferrán Camps, who have never been heard of again, and now those of Dingley. The profile is that of a foreign hiker who was going alone, hence the difficulty in tracking them.
Their names appear in European police databases, from where they will not be released until they are found, "even if many years go by", the Guardia Civíl says. Those who have recently disappeared will be searched again in the spring, after the snow has melted, from where their trail has been lost, but other cases will not be pursued unless new clues are found. "No hypothesis is ever ruled out, but if someone has gone into the mountains alone and disappeared, as long as there is no other information, an accident is assumed," according to the Guardia Civíl.
The search for Dingley ceased with the snowfalls of early December and that of Funes is also suspended, according to his family on Saturday, for the same reasons.
The oldest file, from 2006, is that of the German national Kulosa, a 44-year-old mountaineer. His last trace places him at the Marboré Lake (Ordesa and Monte Perdido National Park), from where he made a phone call reporting a strong storm.
The disappearance of Françoise Dasnois, 48 years of age, in 2009, was widely publicized. Searches took weeks with ample deployments. She was hiking with her husband and son, turned around to go back to the village of Colungo alone, where they were staying, because she was tired, but did not arrive.
Another foreigner, the Dane Michel Nielsen, 65, was staying in a hotel in Benasque in 2010. He went on an excursion and left his belongings and his plane ticket there.
The only Spaniard is Ferrán Camps, 23, who camped in the Plan ibón and whose family reported him missing, also in 2010.
It can take months, years and even decades, but experience says that in the end the entrails of the mountain always end up returning the bodies. The body of Catherine Veron, a French university student, was found 18 years after she fell into a crevasse on the Aneto glacier. Another glacier, the Tempestades, kept the remains of 29-year-old mountaineer Joaquín López Valls for 47 years, between 1954 and 2001. He was trying to open a path on the Margalida peak when a whole block of rock gave way and dragged him to a rimaya (a gap between the rock and the ice). This is the longest known disappearance, which ended when some hikers found some remains (bones, a glove and a bag).
After three years, the same circumstances made it possible to find José Joaquín Ayete, a 14-year-old man from Zaragoza with physiological and communication problems, thanks to some clothes and some bones. He was 8 kilometres found from where he got lost.
When the ice melted, José María García Fernández, a 36 year old hiker from Zaragoza, was found dead, lost in the Bujaruelo valley in 2016 and discovered by a shepherd five months and 11 days later in an area outside the main tracking perimeter, far from the path.
Some disappearances also have a happy ending, such as that of the Frenchwoman Teresa Bordais, against all odds, as she survived after 11 days drinking water from a ravine and eating leaves and herbs. Time makes all the difference. It was June, winter did not impose its rules.
Cinco montañeros permanecen en la lista de desaparecidos de los últimos 15 años
Esther Dingley is the last name on the list of missing hikers in the Pyrenees and the Sierra de Guara. The trail of this 37 year old British woman vanished on the 22nd of November in Benasque and less than a month later (on the 19th of December), on the other side of the mountain range the same thing happened to the Aragonese lawyer Andrés Funes, 61 years of age and resident of Huesca. Since then there has been no news of either of them, and the search operations had to be interrupted by the arrival of winter and heavy snowfall.
The cases of Esther and Andrés are not exceptional. In total, five hikers remain missing in the province of Huesca (Funes disappeared in the French valley of Aspe and it is the Gendarmerie that is handling the case), some of them since 2006. The police archives hold the files of German Reinhard Kulosa, Belgian François Dasnois, Danish Michel Nielsen and Spanish Ferrán Camps, who have never been heard of again, and now those of Dingley. The profile is that of a foreign hiker who was going alone, hence the difficulty in tracking them.
Their names appear in European police databases, from where they will not be released until they are found, "even if many years go by", the Guardia Civíl says. Those who have recently disappeared will be searched again in the spring, after the snow has melted, from where their trail has been lost, but other cases will not be pursued unless new clues are found. "No hypothesis is ever ruled out, but if someone has gone into the mountains alone and disappeared, as long as there is no other information, an accident is assumed," according to the Guardia Civíl.
The search for Dingley ceased with the snowfalls of early December and that of Funes is also suspended, according to his family on Saturday, for the same reasons.
The oldest file, from 2006, is that of the German national Kulosa, a 44-year-old mountaineer. His last trace places him at the Marboré Lake (Ordesa and Monte Perdido National Park), from where he made a phone call reporting a strong storm.
The disappearance of Françoise Dasnois, 48 years of age, in 2009, was widely publicized. Searches took weeks with ample deployments. She was hiking with her husband and son, turned around to go back to the village of Colungo alone, where they were staying, because she was tired, but did not arrive.
Another foreigner, the Dane Michel Nielsen, 65, was staying in a hotel in Benasque in 2010. He went on an excursion and left his belongings and his plane ticket there.
The only Spaniard is Ferrán Camps, 23, who camped in the Plan ibón and whose family reported him missing, also in 2010.
It can take months, years and even decades, but experience says that in the end the entrails of the mountain always end up returning the bodies. The body of Catherine Veron, a French university student, was found 18 years after she fell into a crevasse on the Aneto glacier. Another glacier, the Tempestades, kept the remains of 29-year-old mountaineer Joaquín López Valls for 47 years, between 1954 and 2001. He was trying to open a path on the Margalida peak when a whole block of rock gave way and dragged him to a rimaya (a gap between the rock and the ice). This is the longest known disappearance, which ended when some hikers found some remains (bones, a glove and a bag).
After three years, the same circumstances made it possible to find José Joaquín Ayete, a 14-year-old man from Zaragoza with physiological and communication problems, thanks to some clothes and some bones. He was 8 kilometres found from where he got lost.
When the ice melted, José María García Fernández, a 36 year old hiker from Zaragoza, was found dead, lost in the Bujaruelo valley in 2016 and discovered by a shepherd five months and 11 days later in an area outside the main tracking perimeter, far from the path.
Some disappearances also have a happy ending, such as that of the Frenchwoman Teresa Bordais, against all odds, as she survived after 11 days drinking water from a ravine and eating leaves and herbs. Time makes all the difference. It was June, winter did not impose its rules.
Cinco montañeros permanecen en la lista de desaparecidos de los últimos 15 años
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Long post. Thinking out loud.
ED summited Pic de S on the 21st at 1:11 pm, and then spent that night at Cabane de la Besurtas. Given the relatively short distance between the summit and the Cabane, it seems likely she arrived at the Cabane late that afternoon, and perhaps had plenty of time to kill. Apparently she spent the night at the Cabane alone.
While we don't know what time ED left Cabane de la Besurtas the following morning (the 22nd) for her second trip up to the Pic de S summit, unless she took a side trip or a different route, it's seems she couldn't have left the Cabane until fairly late that morning (maybe even around noon), as she didn't arrive at the summit until around 3:30 pm.
Again, I wonder why she spent so much time at that Cabane? Might've done some yoga that morning, I suppose. But I read earlier that, for the most part, ED disliked killing time around Cabanes.
And if (IF) she did get a late start on the 22nd, it would've potentially put her at risk of running out of daylight on her leg from the summit of Pic de S down to Refuge de Venasque - especially once she passed through Port de Venasque and crossed from Spain into France, where she would be on the much colder and darker side of the mountain.
If she became unnerved at the Port de Venasque crossing as she passed from the warm sunshine to the cold darkness/shade and headed down toward the unknown Refuge de Venasque (a place she was unfamiliar with, and a place at which she only "hoped" there was a "winter room"), could ED have instead decided to turn right and head back down the sunny side to the familiar Cabane de la Besurtas - even if it meant possibly arriving after dark?
Yes it would have shortened her trip, but stranger things have happened. And there was no evidence found that she ever stayed at Refuge de Venasque. And I very seriously doubt that she went beyond the Refuge (further down the French side) in the dark.
If (IF) ED did go back to Cabane de la Besurtas, could something have happened to her that evening as she arrived, perhaps before she could take her phone out of airplane mode and check in with DC and her family?
It appears that unlike the higher elevations, there are woods around Cabane de la Besurtas. Was Cabane de la Besurtas within the identified search area?
Where could ED be?
All jmo, thinking out loud
ED summited Pic de S on the 21st at 1:11 pm, and then spent that night at Cabane de la Besurtas. Given the relatively short distance between the summit and the Cabane, it seems likely she arrived at the Cabane late that afternoon, and perhaps had plenty of time to kill. Apparently she spent the night at the Cabane alone.
While we don't know what time ED left Cabane de la Besurtas the following morning (the 22nd) for her second trip up to the Pic de S summit, unless she took a side trip or a different route, it's seems she couldn't have left the Cabane until fairly late that morning (maybe even around noon), as she didn't arrive at the summit until around 3:30 pm.
Again, I wonder why she spent so much time at that Cabane? Might've done some yoga that morning, I suppose. But I read earlier that, for the most part, ED disliked killing time around Cabanes.
And if (IF) she did get a late start on the 22nd, it would've potentially put her at risk of running out of daylight on her leg from the summit of Pic de S down to Refuge de Venasque - especially once she passed through Port de Venasque and crossed from Spain into France, where she would be on the much colder and darker side of the mountain.
If she became unnerved at the Port de Venasque crossing as she passed from the warm sunshine to the cold darkness/shade and headed down toward the unknown Refuge de Venasque (a place she was unfamiliar with, and a place at which she only "hoped" there was a "winter room"), could ED have instead decided to turn right and head back down the sunny side to the familiar Cabane de la Besurtas - even if it meant possibly arriving after dark?
Yes it would have shortened her trip, but stranger things have happened. And there was no evidence found that she ever stayed at Refuge de Venasque. And I very seriously doubt that she went beyond the Refuge (further down the French side) in the dark.
If (IF) ED did go back to Cabane de la Besurtas, could something have happened to her that evening as she arrived, perhaps before she could take her phone out of airplane mode and check in with DC and her family?
It appears that unlike the higher elevations, there are woods around Cabane de la Besurtas. Was Cabane de la Besurtas within the identified search area?
Where could ED be?
All jmo, thinking out loud
DC suggests that the track Esther would have taken is well defined so presumably the only reason she would have deviated off the track would have been but if she needed to answer a call of nature. I have read articles which suggest that “hiking potty protocol” recommends going off track a pretty long way - eg 30 - 100 metres.
If Esther did this I guess she could have then been unable to find her way back to the main track and have got lost or fallen outside of the area searched. (Like poor Geraldine Largay on the Appalachian Trail and possibly the reason why a couple of the hikers mentioned by ZaZara were found off track) IMO this could be a likely scenario.
No doubt this has been considered by SAR but maybe they will widen the search area when weather conditions permit.
If Esther did this I guess she could have then been unable to find her way back to the main track and have got lost or fallen outside of the area searched. (Like poor Geraldine Largay on the Appalachian Trail and possibly the reason why a couple of the hikers mentioned by ZaZara were found off track) IMO this could be a likely scenario.
No doubt this has been considered by SAR but maybe they will widen the search area when weather conditions permit.
Tortoise
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This is what the information pack says about her stay at Besurtas the previous night -
"Spends the night alone at Cabana de la Besurtas on the Spanish side (Esther had no phone signal once she left the peak, but she confirmed this the following day when she returned to Pic de Sauvegarde)."
Grouse
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RSBM
It was in the search area DC/LBT published - see page 18 of --> https://42cc80b7-be3b-41e3-a85b-18b...d/4addd9_d8c55b489c6f445b96d6324dd882f5a1.pdf
but note it says "The blue line is intended to roughly indicate the scope of the search area as shown to Dan Colegate by the search coordinators at the time of the search. It is not an official report from the police teams responsible for the search"
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