Found Deceased Spain - Esther Dingley, from UK, missing in the Pyrenees, November 2020 #6

[ZaZara]

Would £1000 plus a little extra be enough for 2 people per month to live off? To me, that sounds a quarter of what it would take, minimum. ED and DC had to buy and maintain a camper van. Indeed, they had a series, IIRC. Even if you trade in IME you have a big outlay. DC had specialized medical supplies, presumably. There’s food, laundry (using laundromats regularly gets very spendy IME. The summer back country gear they bought (significant for financials that they didn’t have more robust 3-season gear or ED didn’t get some for her winter trip?) would have cost several thousand £££ (at least 3.5k if DC had similar gear/apparel to ED).
I once traveled around sleeping in my car. It was waaay more expensive than I would have guessed. I finally had to rush home, back to job and apartment living. And I didn’t have a motorhome on my list of expenses, or dogs, or any of that. I didn’t eat out, either: I used a camp stove on one of those ubiquitous a picnic tables. I didn’t pay for camp spots every night, and when I did, it was in federal campgrounds at half price (one such campground was $6 per night). I didn’t have to buy any gear (e.g. I own 5 sleeping bags, from 10F european-norm to 50F, and have been doing all this camping stuff since the 1980’s).
I had no tires to buy, no car maintenance of any kind, cheap insurance since it wasn’t a motorhome, no bike rack, etc.
This footloose and fancy free lifestyle racks up expenses you’d never guess.
So, yeah, I don’t see how 2 people could possibly make do on such a pittance as £1k + a bit more.

There is excellent information on their blog about how Esther and Dan managed their finances and their budget while travelling in their motorhome and their calculations could not be further removed from your (American?) assumptions.
They dedicate an entire post to doing laundry and keeping the costs and the environmental impact down. The same goes for buying food and cooking in their kitchen (with fridge and freezer) in their van.
Fuel, maintenance, equipment, they do the math and save a lot of money.
As for medical insurance, Dan mentions the EHIC card somewhere, this is the European Insurance Card. British NHS would cover his expenses if he had any.

I cannot recommend the blog enough. Apart from information about their travels, it gives a lot of insight about the life they came from (and never wanted to return to), how they wanted to live as a couple and remain connected to their families and friends, and why taking time off on their own was part of their life plan together.

 

[CoverMeCagney]

Would £1000 plus a little extra be enough for 2 people per month to live off? To me, that sounds a quarter of what it would take, minimum.

You think it would take £4000 per month to live off, are you kidding?!

£1000 would easily cover what they did - no fancy restaurants, no clothes shopping, no socialising, no rent, no bills (except possibly phones which are pretty cheap). There is no way they needed £130+ a day to live like that.

 

[Mel79]

You are right to point out this again. This has been interpreted as indicating she was planning to spend the night at Refuge de Venasque the same night the message was sent, with a plan to follow the Chemin de L'Impeatrice. DC's dossier indicates she had indicated this was her plan so maybe there was some verbal communication of this plan that has not been revealed.

I agree though that if one reads this message, it would indicate a purposeful plan to head for Port de Glere the next day and the plan to enter France was a possibility. This, to me, would indicate a plan to go to Port de Glere via the Spanish side and to consider an onward "dip" into France.

The problem is that she may have been a bit vague about her plans and I would not necessarily take this exactly as in the message. She may for instance have planned the Chemin de l'Impeatrice and not considered this a proper dip into France as it is so close to the border but was perhaps considering going further to Bagneres de Luchon and maybe was referring to this as a the "dip".

What I take from this is that we have absolutely no idea if she went into France or Spain from Pic de Sauvegarde !
I suspect her remains will be found eventually a km or two from Port de Glere because it is probably more than coincidence that her last message and skull fragment were located a small distance from each other as the crow flies. The shortcut from Sauvegarde to Port de Glere is an interesting theory and she would have been able to see this area from Pic de Sauvegarde.

Possibly she would have been vague in her written communications as she knew going into France from Spain to stay in a refuge was not going to go down well with French officials - best not to have too much evidence of intention. What she said is more likely to have had more detail.

One thing I don't think has been mentioned is that the Refuge at Venasque was being developed - a large new building at a slightly different location. From Wednesday Sept 30th it was left unguarded Log into Facebook BUT there is a post saying the refuge was occupied 14-16 October as workers were staying there. From the images posted October 14th the weather doesn't look great - a bit snowy but with some clear spells. The weather at the time Esther may have tried to get there in November looks better so maybe workers took the opportunity to go in there again, or maybe a lockdown escapee/hunter was there on the 22nd November. In either case she may well have been frightened and decided to try and hike on to another refuge.

 

[otto]

Camper van living seems to have replaced 1970s backpack travelling. These costs do not include camper van maintenance or hiking equipment, but they do include eating out.

"Taking the decision to live in a motorhome full-time and opting to live more freely has drastically changed our way of life as well as reducing our monthly outgoings. After spending our first few months in our van in the UK, we decided on trying out van life in Europe in search of more adventure.

Looking at our spending previously, from renting a house with bills, taxing and insuring a vehicle, groceries and other general day-to-day costs in the UK. Then comparing this to living in a van full-time, we have discovered that for us, living in our campervan is not only less expensive but is a far more enriching way to live. Living well for less is something we have managed to achieve, mainly through focusing on what it is that is really important to us both and ridding ourselves of the excess of possessions and with that the sense of need and ownership that we had adopted. ...

Total Days In France : 31
Total Spent (2 people) – €1,105.74 | £967.82

​

Van Life Europe - Our Costs For A Month In France - Destination Addict

 

[Mel79]

Camper van living seems to have replaced 1970s backpack travelling. These costs do not include camper van maintenance or hiking equipment, but they do include eating out.

"Taking the decision to live in a motorhome full-time and opting to live more freely has drastically changed our way of life as well as reducing our monthly outgoings. After spending our first few months in our van in the UK, we decided on trying out van life in Europe in search of more adventure.

Looking at our spending previously, from renting a house with bills, taxing and insuring a vehicle, groceries and other general day-to-day costs in the UK. Then comparing this to living in a van full-time, we have discovered that for us, living in our campervan is not only less expensive but is a far more enriching way to live. Living well for less is something we have managed to achieve, mainly through focusing on what it is that is really important to us both and ridding ourselves of the excess of possessions and with that the sense of need and ownership that we had adopted. ...

Total Days In France : 31
Total Spent (2 people) – €1,105.74 | £967.82

​

Van Life Europe - Our Costs For A Month In France - Destination Addict

Don't forget they acquired 5 dogs later on though!

 

[otto]

Don't forget they acquired 5 dogs later on though!

Indeed. Feeding five dogs is like adding at least one more person to grocery costs.

I suppose the stories of letting others feed them, or borrowing services from other van owners, is merely to illustrate how inexpensively people can live if they rely somewhat on others.

 

[Grouse]

You think it would take £4000 per month to live off, are you kidding?!

£1000 would easily cover what they did - no fancy restaurants, no clothes shopping, no socialising, no rent, no bills (except possibly phones which are pretty cheap). There is no way they needed £130+ a day to live like that.

"He takes me to the best restaurants" as she said, eating a simple meal on a mountain side. Not everyone needs or wants the £4000 a month lifestyle.

 

[RickshawFan]

When camping in the wilds I've often preferred to arrive at my destination late in the day. Camping alone, boredom can set in after dark, and ED was out in late November, well after the equinox. In an Instagram post a few days before her disappearance, ED wrote of "sitting and waiting in the cold on my own" in a refuge when she chose to accept a ride from another hiker:

Login • Instagram

It can make sense to conserve body heat in cooler weather by staying active as late in the day as possible. There's also the pleasure of being alone in the high country when the day-trippers have gone home for tea!

Dark is the operative word here, though. It would be a really bad idea to be hiking in those mountains in late November after dark, unless you were bolting for the trailhead and had a VERY bright headlamp (ED's was low lumens and last 2 hours max). And dark is early in late November: maybe 5:30 or so? And it was below freezing, so the trails were hairy. Yes, you'd have had to hang out until you fell asleep, but that's the safe thing to do. You come up with stuff: fetch water, filter it, make tea, build a fire, roast a potato, fill your Nalgene with boiling water to use as a hot water bottle to keep you warm, get out your little pencil and the sudoku you clipped from the newspaper, write journal pages, play app games, hang your damp clothes or re-arrange them on your body, traipsing to the privy, get more water, make more tea, boil water for re-hydrating your meal, wash your socks, eat your dinner, make hot chocolate, (you gotta drink LITERS to hydrate on long hauls...I was filtering at least 6 liters every dinner time on the AT).
If you hate having to sit and wait in the cold on your own, I think maybe you'd be happier waiting 'til summer when there are more people around and right now snugged up in the campervan where you'd feel warm and cozy.

 

[RickshawFan]

You think it would take £4000 per month to live off, are you kidding?!

£1000 would easily cover what they did - no fancy restaurants, no clothes shopping, no socialising, no rent, no bills (except possibly phones which are pretty cheap). There is no way they needed £130+ a day to live like that.

Thanks for calling my attention to that, Cags. It looks like I cut and pasted funny or something. I wouldn't reckon 4k pounds a month.

 

[RickshawFan]

There is excellent information on their blog about how Esther and Dan managed their finances and their budget while travelling in their motorhome and their calculations could not be further removed from your (American?) assumptions.
They dedicate an entire post to doing laundry and keeping the costs and the environmental impact down. The same goes for buying food and cooking in their kitchen (with fridge and freezer) in their van.
Fuel, maintenance, equipment, they do the math and save a lot of money.
As for medical insurance, Dan mentions the EHIC card somewhere, this is the European Insurance Card. British NHS would cover his expenses if he had any.

I cannot recommend the blog enough. Apart from information about their travels, it gives a lot of insight about the life they came from (and never wanted to return to), how they wanted to live as a couple and remain connected to their families and friends, and why taking time off on their own was part of their life plan together.

The blog finances may be why many have the impression the couple was funds-limited.

 

[RickshawFan]

Looking at our spending previously, from renting a house with bills, taxing and insuring a vehicle, groceries and other general day-to-day costs in the UK.

Snipped for focus.
I thought they owned a house. But they were renting?

 

[Mandalas]

I have been following this case for a few weeks, and have been reading all the various theories, captivated. It's a striking case, and I very much hope for clarity and peace for ED's family soon.

I am however pretty intrigued by the theory of foul play. Regardless of whether this is simply LE doing due process etc. without needing macabre detail, how could someone 'get away' with murder in that context? Surely there are so few people in that environment, that any chance of being seen at any stage presents too high a risk, even if it is just about passing the occasional other trekker/climber on the way up or down? Does it actually happen that someone would seek to take the life of someone else at the top of a mountain?! In what kind of circumstances would that even be realistic?

I could probably do an internet search for mountain murders, but honestly, it feels a bit far fetched to me as a theory. I'm not saying it's impossible, I just cannot see why someone who is interested in taking the life of another would choose to do it in such difficult and risky conditions.

For this reason, I am inclined to think sadly that this a case of something going awry and the solo nature of ED's venture exacerbated the issue, and brought her face to face with a tragic demise. Devastating, but not sinister.

MOO

 

[Steve13]

I have been following this case for a few weeks, and have been reading all the various theories, captivated. It's a striking case, and I very much hope for clarity and peace for ED's family soon.

I am however pretty intrigued by the theory of foul play. Regardless of whether this is simply LE doing due process etc. without needing macabre detail, how could someone 'get away' with murder in that context? Surely there are so few people in that environment, that any chance of being seen at any stage presents too high a risk, even if it is just about passing the occasional other trekker/climber on the way up or down? Does it actually happen that someone would seek to take the life of someone else at the top of a mountain?! In what kind of circumstances would that even be realistic?

I could probably do an internet search for mountain murders, but honestly, it feels a bit far fetched to me as a theory. I'm not saying it's impossible, I just cannot see why someone who is interested in taking the life of another would choose to do it in such difficult and risky conditions.

For this reason, I am inclined to think sadly that this a case of something going awry and the solo nature of ED's venture exacerbated the issue, and brought her face to face with a tragic demise. Devastating, but not sinister.

MOO

Yes, Mandalas. V much so. I think most of us here think along those lines. And yet, you and we are intrigued. My own feeling is that in a regular mountain accident people would feel there's really no point contemplating the idea of murder. There's no intrigue there. Here, we instinctually feel that there's something amiss. There are variables, to put it no stronger, which stand out and bite you on the neck. The most likely narrative nevertheless seems off. The cops seem to be being oblique, sphinx-like, and for what reason? This all overlays the idea that these are two folk with gleaming academic records whose lives became, in short order following contact with reality outside the spires, a cycle of pointlessness. I imagine a kind of doppler effect experienced by locals across France's van-parking sites as the same couple's van comes around again and again, the drivers locked in a cruel circle while ironically trying to run in a straight line away from their earlier promise. Or something. No wonder the media is hovering excitedly. It may be a minority chance, but if it manifests it's the stuff of decent literature or maybe even better - a Netflix series.

 

[RickshawFan]

Does it actually happen that someone would seek to take the life of someone else at the top of a mountain?! In what kind of circumstances would that even be realistic?

Snipped for focus.

Machu Picchu?

 

[RedHaus]

I could probably do an internet search for mountain murders, but honestly, it feels a bit far fetched to me as a theory. I'm not saying it's impossible, I just cannot see why someone who is interested in taking the life of another would choose to do it in such difficult and risky conditions.

RSBM
Indeed, @Mandalas. And thank you for bringing your expertise to the discussion of this case on WS.

Not that I endorse this theory with any enthusiasm, but the following has been mentioned here in passing. To be true to our collective discussion (and I think DC has pointed to this possibility as well) I bring forward one scenario that may challenge your hypothesis. What if a hunter accidentally fatally shot ED and found out he / she did so? That person may be motivated to cover up what had happened and hastily cover ED's body with rocks and brush; then perhaps take her kit with her / him to avoid it being found. There are many possible scenarios and this is just but one small one, IMO.

 

[RickshawFan]

There is excellent information on their blog about how Esther and Dan managed their finances and their budget while travelling in their motorhome and their calculations could not be further removed from your (American?) assumptions.
They dedicate an entire post to doing laundry and keeping the costs and the environmental impact down. The same goes for buying food and cooking in their kitchen (with fridge and freezer) in their van.
Fuel, maintenance, equipment, they do the math and save a lot of money.
As for medical insurance, Dan mentions the EHIC card somewhere, this is the European Insurance Card. British NHS would cover his expenses if he had any.

I cannot recommend the blog enough. Apart from information about their travels, it gives a lot of insight about the life they came from (and never wanted to return to), how they wanted to live as a couple and remain connected to their families and friends, and why taking time off on their own was part of their life plan together.

This presumably doesn’t include the cost of their housing, namely their van. That would have to be amortized by the month to arrive at a monthly cost. And every time they purchased a different one, the costs adjusted.

My understanding is that its against TOS to consult victims’ social media. It’s been pointed out to me that means DC in this case. I would imagine that ED would come under that rubric as well. So, I have not read FB.

In general, I find FB unreliable because the information is often selected to give a rosy picture of the page owner. My sense of this comes from the Hart case, where what was presented was all designed to disguise reality to the nth detail, including how the refrigerator was stocked, the vegetarian PR of the mothers, what the children were eating and how they were living, and the budget, per LE.

No matter, because I have all the information I need for the Dingley case from the dossier, subsequent DC public statements, LBT press releases, and LE/SAR, without consulting Facebook.

 

[RickshawFan]

RSBM
Indeed, @Mandalas. And thank you for bringing your expertise to the discussion of this case on WS.

Not that I endorse this theory with any enthusiasm, but the following has been mentioned here in passing. To be true to our collective discussion (and I think DC has pointed to this possibility as well) I bring forward one scenario that may challenge your hypothesis. What if a hunter accidentally fatally shot ED and found out he / she did so? That person may be motivated to cover up what had happened and hastily cover ED's body with rocks and brush; then perhaps take her kit with her / him to avoid it being found. There are many possible scenarios and this is just but one small one, IMO.

I could put a slightly different spin on this… ED could have had an accident and been separated from her equipment. Someone could have come along and seeing no one around—or assuming so because of COVID—simply took the backpack. Most hikers wouldn’t do this, but because of the sheer lack of people around they may just have assumed it had been abandoned.
I also think—actually very likely the case—that the tarptent blew away potentially to some distant land. It’s basically a one-layer piece of ultra-light fabric. Since that was the only colorful item in the backpack, the remainder would have been very difficult to spot.

 

[mrjitty]

Camper van living seems to have replaced 1970s backpack travelling. These costs do not include camper van maintenance or hiking equipment, but they do include eating out.

"Taking the decision to live in a motorhome full-time and opting to live more freely has drastically changed our way of life as well as reducing our monthly outgoings. After spending our first few months in our van in the UK, we decided on trying out van life in Europe in search of more adventure.

Looking at our spending previously, from renting a house with bills, taxing and insuring a vehicle, groceries and other general day-to-day costs in the UK. Then comparing this to living in a van full-time, we have discovered that for us, living in our campervan is not only less expensive but is a far more enriching way to live. Living well for less is something we have managed to achieve, mainly through focusing on what it is that is really important to us both and ridding ourselves of the excess of possessions and with that the sense of need and ownership that we had adopted. ...

Total Days In France : 31
Total Spent (2 people) – €1,105.74 | £967.82

​

Van Life Europe - Our Costs For A Month In France - Destination Addict

The thing is, this budget represents a short term travel budget, but not realistic costs medium to long term.

First up, the camper needs to be insured, MOT, maintained etc

Kit needs to be replaced.

etc etc etc

 

[Kazibar]

"There's another option: a shortcut via Lac de la Montagnette found on the internet on various webpages but not tried yet by myself. On Google Earth we can spot the trails involved and I made this kml-route of it (click to open it in GE). NB: I tried this shortcut at 15-9-2016”

if you click on 15-9-2016, you go to his account of the shortcut which he had to give up on as too steep with a large pack!​

 

[ZaZara]

This presumably doesn’t include the cost of their housing, namely their van. That would have to be amortized by the month to arrive at a monthly cost. And every time they purchased a different one, the costs adjusted.

My understanding is that its against TOS to consult victims’ social media. It’s been pointed out to me that means DC in this case. I would imagine that ED would come under that rubric as well. So, I have not read FB.

In general, I find FB unreliable because the information is often selected to give a rosy picture of the page owner. My sense of this comes from the Hart case, where what was presented was all designed to disguise reality to the nth detail, including how the refrigerator was stocked, the vegetarian PR of the mothers, what the children were eating and how they were living, and the budget, per LE.

No matter, because I have all the information I need for the Dingley case from the dossier, subsequent DC public statements, LBT press releases, and LE/SAR, without consulting Facebook.

You can consult whatever you like, no one at WS is stopping you from doing that.

But if so, where do you get your information about matters like insurance that are NOT in the sources that you mention?