No response for two months. No clue, no trace. Two months since fate On December 29, José Antonio Martínez, who was 45 at the time, stopped being.. Born in Catalonia, he took advantage of the Christmas holidays to go to his partner’s town of Ceclavín (Cáceres) and He followed the route he always wanted: climb El Calvitero, the peak connecting the states of Cáceres and Salamanca. A dreamlike landscape, 2,400 meters altitude. Meticulous, methodical and excited, he left the house equipped: “I’m starting the route, everything is fine,” he texted his partner. He put his cell phone in his bag and started walking. Didn’t use it again. Its trace was lost in the Sierra de Béjar. Hasn’t happened since then.
“The area where the dog tracks is a possible one (…), but we find ourselves facing an impenetrable wall of ice”
“His phone wasn’t signaling,” his partner of 17 years, Merche, resurrects. “I knew something was up.” That same night, the search began: intermittent, inevitably scarce, and currently paralyzed by the storm.
Slowing down due to snow and ice. Emergency crews stopped searching until a group of experts voluntarily resumed it on February 11: “a dog took care of a field“, CASO ABIERTO – the Iberian Press Events and Investigation portal – tells José Ángel Sánchez, Chief Officer of the Guadalix Local Police and responsible for the QSDglobal Foundation’s BGA (Wide Area Search) expert group since 2004.
“A region likely to be 1,912 meters above El Calvitero, a peak that José Antonio wanted to climb. There may be an attitude-inducing smell in the dog, and it has nothing to do with José Antonio… but we could not confirm. We couldn’t go up. We find ourselves with a wall of ice that is impossible for us to overcome.“.
Those who love him most at home call him Jose, a master mountaineer, diver, astronomy lover and watchman, and he has not been here for 60 days.
“I’m here. Everything is fine”
“I was”. It was 9:11 on Thursday, December 29.. José Antonio parked on the second platform of Torreón (Sierra de Candelario, very close to La Covatilla ski resort Béjar). He checked his backpack, looked ahead, knew the route by heart, memorized it, and started walking. During, recorded voice whatsapp for Mercedes: “I’m starting the route, everything is fine”.
“I’ve wanted to do this for a long time,” explains Merche. “To tell the truth, I was afraid he would go to El Calvitero, I don’t know why. Look, he’s diving every weekend and it could be more dangerous there. but I was always trying to get that idea from him.” This Christmas, Jose dreamed of promotion, and taking advantage of an empty spot on the agenda, he gave himself a gift: he would rise.
“I got your message,” his partner comes alive. “I was a little angry. I didn’t want him to, something told me not to do it… ‘You’re already peaking in Catalonia, are you on vacation too?’ So I just said okay.” Hours later, he would be the one to set the alarm. José did not come back. His phone was not giving a signal.
warning
Front, ice axes, crampons. Warm clothes, snow pants, red North Face jacket. Charger for mobile charging and car. José Antonio left everything ready the night before. “Just don’t go.” To calm Mercedes down, she told him about a group of hikers. Active Tourismused to go up. He walked with expert feet. I’ve reviewed them all. That was that day, he went up.
When I answer “OK”, Merche steps back, “she doesn’t read anymore. In other words, she picks up her cell phone as soon as she sends me the message.” Mercedes continues to rewind the previous clocks: “At 2:30 pm I sent him another message: ‘Is everything alright?’ He gets it, but he doesn’t read it either.” He wasn’t warned. I told him about the route, it would be between six and eight hours. The afternoon is advancing, no word from Jose. The warning continues at six. “He didn’t tell me anything,” Mercedes revives, “so I sent him another message with a bunch of questions like this one that no longer reaches him.” The phone is turned off. The fear has begun.
Research
“The phone you are calling…”. Same message, same mechanical sound, over and over. “I remember my daughter Carla trying to comfort me: ‘Mom, The battery is already dead, wait until it comes to the car as it has a charger…“. They gave a short margin. The calm was soon broken.”I remembered what they told me about the group, the Turismo Activa group, and I called them.. They told me: we did not part. Call 112 now.
The Béjar Civil Guard was at the exact spot Jose had pointed out to the woman hours earlier: “On platform two of El Travieso…”. There was wind, cold, fog and some rain. added Special Rescue Group for Mountain Response (unmerciful). An intense search began that same night, intermittent in the following days and then almost non-existent. Wind and snow paralyzed everything. “They told us the search was suspended… that’s all.”
Accident or disorientation
José Antonio’s phone rings at 3:40 p.m. as the Civil Guards are being re-established in the Torreón area. In that wide stretch, triangulation becomes impossible with just two telephone antennas. “But they’ve more or less limited the area from which he goes out,” complains Merche. “The search focused there. I guess they think he had an accident at the time and didn’t get out.“.
For the first three days, the wind made it impossible for helicopters and drones to fly. “Safety is the first and we’re aware of that. And we think the same way. We’re afraid something will happen to anyone who calls Jose,” Mercedes insists.but maybe if they hadn’t made it to the top on those snowy days, they could have looked down.“.
“Did he do enough? A six-foot-tall man. He fell and there’s nothing left of him?” Desperation adds to the pain, “what if the fog distracts him? What if something happens to him but he tries to get out? from the beginning it was approached as the recovery of a corpse”.
“Don’t put yourself in our place”, I begged then, I beg now. “While you can’t search above, look for the natural outlets of the sierra. maybe that’s it it had to be done within the first 48 or 72 hours when the helicopters could not fly. They dumped him… I told you from the beginning, I know Jose. If he had an accident upstairs and was alive, he tried to escape from there. He has a head like a stone. He insisted on returning, just as he insisted on leaving. He is stubborn.”
thaw
On January 7, the search was suspended. The struggle of Mercedes and family managed to get the device back on. It took a few days, stopped again on the 16th. No date to continue “I think they’re waiting to be thawed,” said Mercedes bitterly. “I think the people who announced the termination don’t know Jose, they don’t remember he’s still on the mountain, but we know the family.”
On February 11, nine guides and Six BGA specialist dogs from the QSDglobal foundation beat part of El Calvitero’s subregion. One of the dogs threw hope. But the ice slowed down again. “We plan to create a larger technical group of specialized professionals, which can go up to an 8 to 10-person corps.” It is possible that the point the dog marked went to Jose.
She was going to marry. Two weeks before he disappeared, he proposed to his partner, whom he had been with for 17 years.
Torn, Mercedes, war against nature. He regrets what has not been done and what could be done, but clings to one mantra: “We must find him”. It also embraces all kinds of gestures of solidarity. The climbers involved in the search, the arrival of UCAS with the trail dogs from Arrate, the day after his disappearance, and this last search.
“The participation of the Civil Guard, I know they are looking for when and how they can do it despite being suspended. They returned to us. While waiting for the news of the lost morning, I spent the night in the car. No one from the institutions helped me. It was the Civil Guard who found a place for me the next night. A rural house in Candelario run by Mr. Fermín and his wife María Luisa, a married couple who treated us wonderfully … I will never forget that”.
Meticulous, very; methodical, more “He studied everything Jose did, he planned it from start to finish. He became an expert.” Loved by all, “patients adored him.” After seventeen years together, Merche and José had endless goals, challenges and projects.. Among them, in capital letters PROJECT: they started a few weeks before it disappeared. Finally, Merche said yes. They were getting married.