A dog specialized in the search for corpses marked an area of the mountain to which the ice prevents access. It happened during the last search carried out by volunteers from the QSDglobal Foundation
Two months without answers. No clues, no trace. Two months since the fateful December 29 in which José Antonio Martínez, then 45 years old, stopped being. A native of Catalonia, taking advantage of the Christmas holidays, he traveled to the town of his partner, Ceclavín (Cáceres) and He traced the route he always wanted: climb El Calvitero, the summit that joins the provinces of Cáceres and Salamanca. Dream landscape, 2,400 meters of altitude. Rigorous, methodical and excited, he left home equipped: “I start the route, everything OK”, he messaged his partner. He put the cell phone in his backpack and started walking. He did not use it again. His trail was lost in the Sierra de Béjar. Since then he hasn’t been.
“The area where the dog marked a trail is a probable area (…), but we find ourselves with an ice wall that is impossible to overcome”
“His phone did not give a signal,” revives Merche, his partner for 17 years. “I knew something had happened.” That same night, she started the search: intermittent, inevitably scarce, and currently paralyzed by the storm. She is slowed down by snow and ice. The emergency teams ceased the search until a group of experts voluntarily resumed it on February 11: “a dog was interested in an area“, tells CASO ABIERTO -Iberian Press Events and Investigation portal- José Ángel Sánchez, Chief Officer of the Guadalix Local Police and responsible since 2004 for the group of experts in BGA (Large Area Search) of the QSDglobal Foundation.
“It is a probable area, below El Calvitero -a peak that José Antonio wanted to climb-, at an altitude of 1,912 meters. It could be something, or It could be a smell that arouses attitude in the dog and it has nothing to do with José Antonio… but we couldn’t confirm it. We couldn’t go up. We find ourselves with an ice wall impossible to overcome“.
At home, those who love him the most, call him Jose, he is an expert mountaineer, diver, lover of astronomy and caretaker, and he has not been here for 60 days.
“I have arrived. Everything OK”
“I have arrived”. It was 9:11 a.m. on Thursday, December 29.. José Antonio had just parked on the second platform of the Torreón (Sierra de Candelario, very close to the La Covatilla ski resort, Béjar). He checked the backpack, looked ahead, he knew the route by heart, he had memorized it, and he started walking. While, he recorded a voice whatsapp for Mercedes: “I start the route, everything OK”.
“I had been wanting to do it for a long time,” explains Merche. “To tell the truth, I was afraid that he would go up to El Calvitero, I don’t know why, Look, he dives every weekend and it may be more dangerous there, but I was always trying to take the idea away from him”. This Christmas Jose imagined the promotion and, taking advantage of a free space in the agenda, he gave himself the gift: he was going to go up.
“I got your message,” revives his partner. “She was a little angry. She didn’t want me to do it, something told me not to… ‘You already do peaks in Catalonia, are you also on vacation?’ That’s why I just said OK.” Hours later it would be she who gave the alarm. José did not return. His phone was not giving a signal.
the alert
Front, ice axes, crampons. Warm clothes, snow pants, red North Face jacket. Mobile charged and, for the car, charger. José Antonio left everything ready the night before. “You just don’t go.” To calm Mercedes down, she told her about a group of hikers, Active Tourism, which used to go up. He walked with expert feet. She had it all studied. That day was the day, she went up.
“When I answered OK,” Merche backs down, “he no longer reads it. In other words, he, at that moment when he sends me the message, puts his cell phone away.” Mercedes continues to reconstruct the previous hours: “at 2:30 p.m. I sent him another message: ‘everything okay?’ He gets to him, but he doesn’t read it either. She was not alerted. She had told him about the route, it would be between six and eight hours. “It didn’t seem relevant to me that he didn’t read it, the first one didn’t read it either.” The afternoon progresses, there is no news from Jose. The alert goes on at six. “He hadn’t told me anything,” Mercedes revives, “so I send him another message, like this with a lot of questions, which no longer reaches him.” The phone was turned off. The horror began.
The search
“The phone you are calling…”. The same message, the same mechanical voice, over and over again. “I remember that Carla, my daughter, tried to reassure me: ‘Mom, Maybe it has run out of battery, wait until it gets to the car because it had the charger…“. They gave a margin, short. The calm was soon broken. “I remembered what he told me about the group, the Turismo Activa group, and I called them. They told me: we have not left. Call 112 immediately.
The Béjar Civil Guard located the car, it was at the exact point that Jose had indicated hours before to the woman: “on the second platform of El Travieso…”. There was wind, cold, fog and some rain. was added the Special Rescue Group for Mountain Intervention (grim). He launched an intense search that same night, intermittent the following days and almost non-existent afterward. The wind and snow paralyzed everything. “They told us that the search was suspended… and that’s it.”
Accident or disorientation
José Antonio’s phone goes off at 3:40 p.m., the Civil Guard rebuilds, in the Torreón area. In that wide extension, with only two telephone antennas, it becomes impossible to triangulate. “But more or less the area in which it goes out, they have it delimited,” laments Merche. “The search is focused there. I guess they think that at that time he had an accident… and he didn’t get out of there“.
The first three days, the wind made it impossible for helicopters and drones to fly. “The first thing is security, and we are aware. Besides, we think the same way. We are terrified that something happens to someone looking for Jose,” insists Mercedes, “but perhaps they could have looked at the lower area on those snowy days, if the peak could not be climbed“.
“Has he done enough? He’s a man who’s 6’2″ tall. He falls, and there’s nothing left of him?” Helplessness adds to the pain, “what if the fog disoriented him? What if something happened to him but he tried to get out? The search is on.” approached from the outset as the rescue of a body”. “Don’t stop it. Put yourself in our place”, I begged then and begs now. “Look for the natural exits of the sierra while you cannot search above. Maybe that’s what it had to have been done the first 48 or 72 hours in which helicopters could not fly. They abandoned him… I said it from the beginning, I know Jose. If he’s had an accident upstairs, and he’s alive, he’s tried to get out of there. He has a head like a stone. Just as he insisted on going, he would insist on coming back. He’s stubborn.”
Thaw
On January 7, the search was suspended. The struggle of Mercedes and her family managed to reactivate the device. It lasted a few days, on the 16th, again, it stopped. No date to resume “I guess they’re waiting for the thaw,” Mercedes deduces painfully. “I suppose that the people who have announced the termination do not know Jose, they do not remember that he is still on the mountain, but we, his family, do.”
On February 11, nine guides and six BGA expert dogs from the QSDglobal foundation beat part of the lower area of El Calvitero. One of the dogs threw a hope. But, again the ice, he braked. “We plan to organize a larger technical group, with specialized professionals, to go up to between 8 and 10 troops.” It is possible that the point marked by the dog leads to Jose.
He was going to get married. Two weeks before he disappeared, he proposed to his partner, with whom he has been with for 17 years.
Torn, Mercedes, fight against nature. He regrets what was not done and could have been done, but he clings to a single mantra: “we have to find it”. It also clings to every gesture of solidarity. The mountaineers who joined the search, the arrival of UCAS from Arrate, with their tracking dogs, the day after he disappeared, and this last search.
“The involvement of the Civil Guard, I know they are looking for when and how they can, despite being suspended. They have turned to us. The morning of the disappearance, while we were waiting for news, I spent the night in a car. No one from the institutions helped me. It was the Civil Guard that found me a place the following night. A rural house in Candelario, managed by Mr. Fermín and his wife, María Luisa, a married couple who have behaved wonderfully with us…. I will never forget it “.
Rigorous, a lot; methodical, more “Everything Jose did he studied, he planned from start to finish. He became an expert.” Beloved by all, “the patients adored him.” After seventeen years together, Merche and José had endless goals, challenges and projects. Among them, THE PROJECT, with capital letters: they started it a couple of weeks before disappearing. Finally Merche had said yes. They were getting married.