Found Deceased Spain - Esther Dingley, from UK, missing in the Pyrenees, November 2020 #1

[RickshawFan]

But wouldn’t she be pushing it a bit in terms of remaining daylight if she bypassed the refuge? I would think she’d have to have a pretty good reason.

One of you great sleuths on this thread...and there are many...posted an article that talked about long shadows of darkness on the mountains as daylight receded. Esther would have been familiar with this. My feeling is that whatever happened...occurred between her descent of the summit and her trip to the refuge.

That was me on the darkness in the valley where the refuge was. It would be a lot darker there sooner than the historic daylight stats for that area would have you believe. A lot colder and damper, too.
Since the refuge was open—and that was her plan and her habit—I can't imagine ED wouldn't stay at the refuge, even for the simple reason that you can cook (or boil water) without freezing your duff (you can't cook in a tent, because of CO and the dangers of open flame). Plus, if dampness gets to your tent (e.g. with dew or frost), you don't have to schlepp it on your hike while wet, which is a total pain in the butt.
Indoors in a refuge, even without heat, would give you maybe 10+ degrees more warmth than a tent IMO. In those conditions, you almost certainly would use the refuge if it was available. You could get even warmer if you pitched your tent inside the refuge.
At a refuge, too, you can sit around and relax, putter about... An ultralight backpacking tent isn't my favorite place for kicking back, and with a 6 pm arrival there were a lot of hours to kill before bed time. I'd have been making tea in the refuge, cups and cups of hot tea....
And if there's a bear squatted on the refuge doorstep so the refuge is unusable? Am I going to unfurl my tent nearby? Ha!
IMO I can't imagine ED got to the refuge and didn't stop. Accident up slope, methinks, or right nearby.

 

[RickshawFan]

That case is extremely similar to Esther's, although I think they found a bit more evidence of him being up there. He was experienced, he had left word of where he intended to go, he wasn't supposed to be out there very long.

So strange. I wonder if Dr Dubal's disappearance is related to water. In Yosemite and Sequoia/Kings Canyon, death by water is the leading cause of visitor death within the parks, and thought to be responsible for more deaths that are unaccounted for.

Yes, very similar. Maybe in his case, both water and hypothermia. My only quibble might be that Dr Dubal, in my assessment, might have had the means and done the research to go fast packing and ultralight. This would have been very dangerous, IMO, on Mount Rainier, because necessities for the conditions would have been trimmed out of the pack. The equipment could have been very skimpy, completely inadequate. It's nightmarish that this has become a fad in the backcountry; IMO VERY selfish for people to do this, since it puts other hikers and SAR at extreme risk in bad conditions. If you've ever been very well-prepared and been tossed out of a shelter in snow because some idiot shows up, drenched, hungry, no fuel, and skimpy sleeping bag and has to have the shelter space...
However, note that I say this was a good possibility in Dubal's case. But I don't have any evidence that he was ultra-lighting.
ED and DC clearly weren't into that. ED seems to have been very suitably equipped unless she didn't take enough food or forgot stove fuel. This likely wouldn't have been the end of the world provided she returned to civilization the next day.

 

[Ruthbullock]

That was me on the darkness in the valley where the refuge was. It would be a lot darker there sooner than the historic daylight stats for that area would have you believe. A lot colder and damper, too.
Since the refuge was open—and that was her plan and her habit—I can't imagine ED wouldn't stay at the refuge, even for the simple reason that you can cook (or boil water) without freezing your duff (you can't cook in a tent, because of CO and the dangers of open flame). Plus, if dampness gets to your tent (e.g. with dew or frost), you don't have to schlepp it on your hike while wet, which is a total pain in the butt.
Indoors in a refuge, even without heat, would give you maybe 10+ degrees more warmth than a tent IMO. In those conditions, you almost certainly would use the refuge if it was available. You could get even warmer if you pitched your tent inside the refuge.
At a refuge, too, you can sit around and relax, putter about... An ultralight backpacking tent isn't my favorite place for kicking back, and with a 6 pm arrival there were a lot of hours to kill before bed time. I'd have been making tea in the refuge, cups and cups of hot tea....
And if there's a bear squatted on the refuge doorstep so the refuge is unusable? Am I going to unfurl my tent nearby? Ha!
IMO I can't imagine ED got to the refuge and didn't stop. Accident up slope, methinks, or right nearby.

So why hasn’t she been found???
If it was so close, a small radius with one
Pathway and the area has been searched. The hills are very smooth compared to British terrain, IMO there is only a fall
Into a lake and has been stated both on this site and in the press- it’s quite something to fall into a lake and leave no evidence. If refilling your water, you would remove your backpack (as she was using a camel pack) so that would remain, otherwise the pathways were wide and there was no reason to be near them, no evidence of slippage on the rocks etc. She has since been missing for several weeks- if we go on the average people we know about on the trails Esther met one per day- so if we stick with that average- that has been at least one person per day walking that same route since the 22nd November and no one has happened upon her, or any equipment. Yes it had snowed, so that may deter some people, but it’s no where near the worst weather yet for hiking, that is around mid February, so there will still be many people on these routes.

 

[sundaaaay]

I think she had an accident in a location where she had no phone signal. She asked for fruit from a passer by which sort of proves she didn’t have much food with her and maybe wasn’t that well prepared for the hike. She may have set up camp for the night underneath a rock or crevice (which there are a lot of). Night would have fallen very quickly and believe me it’s seriously cold up that high at night. I hiked at a similar altitude in summer and there is ice at the cols.

 

[Sillybilly]

Please continue at Thread #2.

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