Backpack, walking stick, water bottle, some food, energy bars, sleeping bag and headlamp. Money, just enough, to take the bus, just one way, the one that left him at the foot of the route. He would walk back later. I’ve done it before, many times. He was an expert mountaineer, speleologist, hiker, climber. He breathed and loved the sport. Juan left home early. That Tuesday, July 20, 2010, at the Malaga station of the Mijas-Fuengirola line, they saw him for the last time. It was 9:10 a.m.
In love with the Sierra de Mijas, Juan Antonio Gomez Alarcon discovered and reflected in a guide 54 cavities, 54 caves, in his beloved mountain. In it, he reeled off endless routes with beginning and end “so that no one gets lost.” “Perhaps on that route he discovered the 55 and that is why we did not find him & rdquor ;, regrets his sister Carmen de el. She disappeared.
“I’ll be back in two or three days,” he said before leaving. He was 32 years old and had many challenges. It’s been 12 and they don’t know anything about him. Mijas remembers its mountaineer with a viewpoint that bears her name. His family, his friends, those who love him, walk in a difficult balance: between continuing to live and continuing to search. They escalate the ongoing pain. There is nothing leading to it.
no phone
“He had been locked up at home for nine months studying the oppositions,” recalls his sister Carmen. “He graduated in Physical Activity and Sports Sciences in 2009. A year later, taking three courses in one (2010), he graduated in Teaching Physical Education.” He loved the sport and wanted to pass it on. “He At the same time he prepared the oppositions for professor”. Outstanding in everything he did, closed the cycle with 25 honor rolls. Once you took the exam, he scheduled his departure, he needed to disconnect. He contacted several friends to schedule the route, they couldn’t, they worked, so he decided to go.
The destination: his favorite mountain range, that of Mijas. Like many other times, he probably did the Ojén route. “When he used a means of transport and did not go by van, it was because he made circular routes,” says his sister. He came to Marbella by bus “and from Marbella he went up to Ojén and through the mountains he returned. In his book there are several Ojén-Mijas routes”. He didn’t come back.
He walked with expert feet. He did not have a cell phone, “in the caves there is no coverage,” she used to say, nor documentation. “He said he would stay three days maximum, but when he left he only came back in two because she was bored.” The alarm went off when the deadline was met. “He left on a Tuesday, Thursday night my sister Ana Maria suspected and on Friday morning he went to report & rdquor ;.
The device started late and finished early. “They said that you had to wait 24 hours to report his disappearance. It was the first mistake, my brother could be injured since the same Tuesday it came out,” he laments. On Saturday a Civil Guard helicopter flew over the mountains. “They searched for four days, with one day off in the middle, and that’s where they cut off. That’s the search that was made for my brother.”
“How are you going to stop looking? Every minute plays against you,” the family begged the Civil Guard
“Something had to happen to him,” laments Carmen, who categorically rules out voluntary march. The investigative body did not do it so firmly, at the beginning. “How it will be?”. Fresh out of college and graduating, he had just made his passion his profession. The previous day paid his college degree fees. The afternoon before, he was at Tuna toy store buying a present for his nephew, Carmen’s first child, who was about to be born. He had plans, dreams, challenges. “He didn’t know whether to rent a flat with a friend or go to Ireland with the cousin of a friend of his to, incidentally, improve her English.” On weekends she worked in a multi-adventure, active tourism company. Juan Antonio was happy.
“You think that maybe your family member is injured, that if we look we can save him…”. The agony was intense. immense. In the mind of Carmen, eight months pregnant, a scene from a movie was recorded, that of ‘The English Patient’: “I have nailed the scene of the movie in which the girl stays in the cave and sees how things go by the hours…”. She kept sending her brother her strength and encouragement to endure.
“You can understand that resources are not infinite, but four days for such a big saw doesn’t make sense“laments Carmen. “Juan is young, we know he had energy bars, sandwiches… we thought that if he was stuck somewhere he could still be alive“.
They searched alone. By dint of knocking on doors, they got a volunteer battalion. José Ángel Sánchez, head of the Local Police of Guadalix de la Sierra (Madrid) at the time, and creator of the Large Area Search (BGA) method, traveled there. He mustered nearly 300 troops. No clue or anything was found that leads to Juan. That he is an expert, a mountaineer, a speleologist, makes the search difficult. “If he got stuck it will be in a place that is difficult to access, not on a trail,” they maintain.
cave 55
The main hypothesis is that Juan suffered an accident. That he found a cave, unknown, number 55 is an option that they have never been able to rule out. “Juan Antonio loved the mountains,” says Carmen.
He started editing the guide for that saw when he was 14 years old, it was published in 2006. In his book, he mentions 54 cavities, “it is possible that my brother is stuck in 55, which discovered a new one and couldn’t get out, that’s why maybe we didn’t find it“. In the 54 identified it was looked without success.
“I think my brother will appear, but it will be by chance,” says Carmen
Twelve years later, life is different. They have faith, to find it, but not with operations or raids. “We have looked in many places, it is very complicated. I do not lose hope that it will be found, but I know it will be by chancelike lots of times cases have been resolved,” he laments.
“The backpack is too heavy”, but they draw strength. They get infected from Juan himself, “hard worker, very constant, fighter”. Those who want it also fight: against oblivion. And they dream. “How many times do we dream of Juan Antonio, that he returns or that he is simply here. We wake up crying, grabbing his clothes so that he will never leave again…”.
He dedicated his life to the mountains, to sports, “he started with athletics”. He was not bad at it: “he has been in the Andalusian championship on several occasions, in the Spanish championship as well, in track athletics”. An injury led him to climb. He fell in love with the mountains, with the routes, with the caves. His family looks to the mountains, his refuge, his escape route. The goal of this race is to find him. They do not see it, but they feel that it is always there.