Five years after the disappearance of Julián Herrera and his nine-year-old daughter Clara, the mountains seemed to have claimed them forever. The case dominated headlines for weeks in 2020, when the two vanished into thin air during a brief, seemingly innocuous hike in the French Pyrenees. As time passed, with no leads or traces remaining, the official search was called off. The family, heartbroken and exhausted, clung to the idea that perhaps they had decided to start a new life far away. Others, more realistic, considered the possibility of a tragic fall in some inaccessible place.
For years, nothing happened. Until, at the end of August, a Catalan couple decided to explore a rarely visited area near the Rolando Pass. Among the deep crevices in the rock, they thought they glimpsed something that broke the gray uniformity of the place. They crouched down, pointed their cell phone flashlight, and saw a rectangular shape covered in dust and damp.
“It’s… a backpack,” he murmured, not daring to touch it.
The woman approached. As she wiped away what appeared to be a label with her fingers, they both looked at each other in surprise.
—Julian Herrera.
Father and daughter lost in the Pyrenees: five years later, hikers discover what was hidden in a crevice.
Their hearts were pounding. It couldn’t be a coincidence. The backpack was wedged between two rocks, as if it had fallen from a high crevice. The couple took photos and sent them to the gendarmerie, who responded immediately. Within hours, a specialized rescue team arrived by helicopter and cordoned off the area.
Captain Morel, who had participated in the initial search five years earlier, opened the backpack while wearing gloves. Inside, he found a dented metal bottle, scraps of food in a bag, a crumpled map… and something that made him shiver: Clara’s blue notebook, recognized by everyone during the investigation.
The media pressure returned with a vengeance. The family was alerted, and journalists from both sides of the border blocked access roads. But the mountain wasn’t willing to provide answers so easily.
The crevice where the backpack was found was only fifty centimeters wide, but it extended several meters downward and much higher. According to experts, it’s possible that Julián had attempted to descend from a nearby point in search of a shortcut or shelter, and had become trapped.
However, Captain Morel wasn’t convinced. Something was strange: the backpack was barely damaged, with no signs of a long fall. Furthermore, there was a pen mark on the map that hadn’t been there when the copies were examined five years earlier.
“This doesn’t add up,” Morel whispered to one of the technicians. “If Julián wrote this after getting lost… we have to find out why.”
The reopening of the investigation turned into a puzzle. And what the team discovered the next day, descending ever deeper into the fissure, completely changed the interpretation of the case.
The rescuers began their descent at dawn. They installed ropes, anchors, and thermal sensors. The fissure was narrow and humid, and every meter seemed to swallow the light. The sound of the wind faded as they descended, replaced by a heavy silence, as if the air had been trapped there for centuries.
Eight meters away, they found the first significant clue: a piece of red cloth, perhaps part of Julián’s windbreaker. It was torn, but not from a sudden fall; rather, it looked as if it had been torn intentionally, like a sign or a symbol.
“It was deliberate,” Morel said. “Julian was trying to leave a trail.”
The theory fit with something that had always worried the family: Julián was an experienced hiker. It didn’t make sense for him to disappear on a moderately difficult trail. But if for some reason he’d chosen an alternative route, perhaps to shelter from a sudden storm, it would have been plausible for him to have tried to orient himself using the trail markers.
Twenty feet away, they found the second clue: a small metal container with an expiration date two years after his disappearance. This puzzled them. It seemed to indicate that someone, not necessarily Julián, had brought food there after 2020.
“Is it possible someone used this crack as a hiding place?” asked one of the technicians.
“Or that someone found Julián and Clara,” replied Morel. “And didn’t report it.”
From that point, the descent became more difficult. The crack widened on one side, forming an irregular cavity. Shining a flashlight around the area, they saw what appeared to be a small makeshift camp: the remains of an electric blanket, an empty can, a short rope, and, at the bottom, a partially wet notebook.
Morel carefully opened it. Many pages were illegible, but a few words were discernible: “not coming up,” “wait,” “injured,” “we hear voices.” There were no names, but the handwriting appeared to be Julián’s.
