BarcelonaThis Thursday morning, the research tasks of the two Catalan hikers who have been missing since Saturday in the French Pyrenees. They are Txell Fusté, 52 years old from Manres, and Esteve Carbonell, 47 years old from Girona. Both have extensive experience in doing complex mountain routes and were equipped for the route they planned to do, but the snow and wind whipped the area of the Pyrenees where they had been walking for hours. They started walking in the Plan de les Peyres – where the rescue teams found their car empty, but with a puppy inside – and wanted to crown the massif of Rulhe. However, the sign of their geolocation, which the ARA has been able to access, and which shows the path taken by the two missing hikers, ends before reaching the summit.
It is about the position that the family has managed to recover and that last Monday contributed to the rescue teams to try to limit the search. Although the search has been going on for almost three days, the rescue efforts have not been successful so far, and five shelters and cabins in the area and several nearby points have been combed. The distance of the circular route, which crosses the Aston valley and is a popular path among hikers, was about 14 kilometers and the intention of the Catalans was to crown the Rulhe peak, which is almost 2,800 meters high, on the same day . The route has more than 1,000 meters of elevation gain and is considered difficult according to mountaineering applications, which estimate that the time needed to do it is about 10 hours.
According to the reconstruction to which the family has had access, the signal of the two hikers is lost near the scree of the Col de les Calmettes, at an altitude of about 2,000 meters. Therefore, they would not have reached the summit yet. Specifically, they would have missed a little more than two kilometers. However, it is not entirely clear that this was the point where they would have disappeared, rather it is the place where their mobile signal was lost and where they were therefore lost.
Other hikers who have done this route that surrounds several ponds describe it as difficult because, “although it is not technically complicated, it is a demanding route with scree and large boulders in some sections”. They also describe that there are some climbing sections on the top of Pic de Rulhe that “require attention” and some “steep” climbs. All of this makes it advisable to “get used to the high mountain terrain”.
The most complicated section of this route is, precisely, close to the area where the signal of the Catalan hikers was lost. It is a part of the route made up of a scree of stone blocks that takes on a slope as it ascends towards the ridge of the Rulhe. A stretch they describe as “demanding and hard”.
Search for both corners of the mountain
This Thursday, the high mountain gendarmerie brigade mobilized again for the fifth consecutive day to try to find the two hikers who disappeared on Saturday. According to the French police, the recognition of hiking routes is being carried out with 4 teams of agents, three of which have been transferred by helicopter to carry out the search from the top of the peak. In addition, a full crew has been activated and will conduct an aerial reconnaissance of the area in an attempt to locate the hikers from the air.
Yesterday, five gendarmes searched for them along the route they had planned to take – to the massif of Rulhe, in Arieja – and five more in the direction of Acs, in case they got disoriented due to the bad weather. Precisely, the improvement of weather conditions in the area also meant that a gendarmerie helicopter could take off for the first time.
On Tuesday, they found the car of the missing in Pla de les Peyres, the last place that can be accessed by vehicle, and found a puppy in it, which does not belong to the couple. Family sources point out that they could have found him in the mountains and left him in the car and then taken him to a shelter. The Catalan Fire Brigade have again offered to help with the search tasks, but for the moment they have not required them. By now the Andorran rescue services are looking for the couple, on the one hand, from the mountain and the French, on the other.