Five years after the disappearance of Julián Herrera and his daughter Clara, only nine years old, the mountain seemed to have devoured them forever. The case had made headlines for weeks in 2020, when both vanished during a short and apparently safe hike in the French Pyrenees. Over time, with no clues and no signs, the official searches were halted. The family, broken and exhausted, clung to the idea that perhaps they had decided to start a new life far from everything. Others, more realistic, believed in a tragic fall somewhere inaccessible.
Nothing happened for years. Until, at the end of August, a Catalan hiking couple decided to explore a rarely visited area near the Breach of Roland. Among the deep fissures that opened in the rock, he thought he saw something that broke the gray uniformity of the place. He bent down, shone his phone’s flashlight, and saw a rectangular shape covered in dust and moisture.
“It’s… a backpack,” he murmured, not daring to touch it.
The woman approached. When she wiped what looked like a label with her fingers, they both stared at each other in shock.
“Julián Herrera.”
Their hearts began to race. It couldn’t be a coincidence. The backpack was wedged between two rocks, as if it had fallen from an upper crevice. The couple took photos and sent them to the gendarmerie, which reacted immediately. Within hours, a specialized rescue team arrived by helicopter, sealing off the area.
Captain Morel, who had taken part in the original search five years earlier, opened the backpack with gloves. Inside he found a dented metal bottle, remnants of packaged food, a crumpled map… and something that froze his blood: Clara’s blue notebook, recognized by everyone during the investigation.
Media pressure returned instantly. The family was alerted, and journalists from both sides of the border crowded the access trails. But the mountain was not willing to give up answers so easily.
The crevice where the backpack appeared was barely fifty centimeters wide, but extended several meters downwards and much more upwards. According to experts, it was possible that Julián had tried to descend from a nearby point looking for a shortcut or shelter, and that they had become trapped.
However, Captain Morel wasn’t convinced. Something was strange: the backpack was barely damaged, with no signs of a long fall. Moreover, the map included a pen mark that hadn’t been present when copies were reviewed five years earlier.
“This doesn’t add up,” Morel whispered to one of the technicians. “If Julián wrote this after getting lost… we need to understand why.”
The reopened investigation became a puzzle. And what the team found the next day, after descending deeper into the crevice, completely changed the interpretation of the case.
At dawn, the rescuers began their descent. They placed ropes, anchors, and thermal sensors. The fissure was narrow and damp, and every meter seemed to swallow the light. The sound of the wind faded behind them as they descended, replaced by a heavy silence, as if the air had been trapped there for centuries.
At eight meters, they found the first significant clue: a piece of red fabric, possibly from Julián’s windbreaker. It was torn, but not from a violent fall; it looked intentionally ripped, like a marker or signal.
“This is deliberate,” said Morel. “Julián was trying to leave a trail.”
The theory fit something that had always bothered the family: Julián was an experienced hiker. It made no sense for him to disappear on a medium-difficulty trail. But if he had chosen an alternate path for some reason—perhaps to shelter from a sudden storm—it would make sense for him to leave signals.
Three meters lower, they found the second clue: a small metallic wrapper, with an expiration date two years after the disappearance. This perplexed them. It suggested that someone—not necessarily Julián—had brought food there after 2020.
“Is it possible someone used this crevice as a hiding place?” one technician asked.
“Or that someone found Julián and Clara,” Morel replied. “And didn’t notify anyone.”
The descent became harder from that point on. The fissure widened to one side, forming an irregular cavity. When they illuminated the area, they saw what looked like a small improvised camp: remnants of a thermal blanket, an empty can, a short rope, and at the back, a partially soaked notebook.
Morel opened it carefully. Many pages were illegible, but some words could still be distinguished: “won’t climb”, “wait”, “injured”, “we heard voices”. There were no names, but the handwriting seemed to be Julián’s.
The most disturbing line appeared on a page in the middle:
“I can’t move. She must sta—”
The sentence ended abruptly, as if Julián had stopped writing suddenly.
“Something serious happened here,” Morel said. “Julián was injured and Clara was still alive.”
The most likely hypothesis was that they had become trapped after a partial fall. But something crucial was missing: no bodies were found. And given the depth of the cavity, it was unlikely they had left on their own without leaving more traces.
While exploring the cavity, one of the rescuers found marks on the wall: three vertical lines repeated several times, like a rudimentary code, possibly used to count days.
“There are at least thirty marks,” the rescuer reported.
Thirty days. A month trapped.
Media pressure increased and the police widened the search radius. For the first time, a theory that had seemed unthinkable emerged: that another person had been involved.
And that theory was reinforced when, at the end of the day, a rescuer found a modern, relatively new rope that belonged neither to Julián, nor Clara, nor any of the rescue teams.
“Someone was here,” said Morel, staring at the mountain as if it could answer him.
But the mountain remained silent.
What they found the next day, however, would speak for it.
The third day of searching was decisive. The exploration expanded to the upper part of the fissure, where the rock formed a kind of vertical corridor filled with ledges and small platforms. According to experts, a person could have moved through it with difficulty… but not a nine-year-old girl alone.
Twenty meters above the cavity, they found evidence of recent human activity: light footprints, as if someone had pushed upward using only the tips of their toes. Strangely, they seemed too recent to correspond to the time of the disappearance.
The key clue appeared when one of the rescuers found, among loose stones, a metal star-shaped pendant. The family immediately confirmed it belonged to Clara. It was her favorite charm, the one she had worn since she was five.
But an even bigger surprise came three hours later.
On a natural ledge, half-hidden among dry bushes, they found a metal first-aid box, rusted on the edges but clearly placed there intentionally. Inside were bandages, remnants of medication… and a carefully folded note inside a plastic bag.
Morel opened the note. The shaky handwriting left no doubt:
“If someone finds this, help her. It wasn’t her fault. He came back, but he wasn’t the same. We couldn’t go down. We tried to call for help. If Clara is alive… please take care of her.”
Signed: J.H.
The message caused confusion. “He came back”? Who was “he”?
The family clarified a chilling detail: weeks before disappearing, Julián had clashed with a man named Aitor, a former expedition partner who had publicly accused him of stealing a joint photography project. Their friendship had collapsed abruptly and bitterly.
The gendarmerie reopened a parallel investigation into Aitor. It turned out he had been in the Pyrenees during the very days of the disappearance… but had never admitted it.
Meanwhile, the teams found a natural exit at the top of the fissure, a narrow corridor leading to a forested area far from the main trail. There, under layers of leaves, they found traces of a rudimentary camp apparently used years earlier: remnants of a fire, a rusty knife, and several food wrappers.
And among the objects, something devastating: a small shoe, identified as Clara’s, along with remnants of her clothing. There were no bones, which meant the girl could have left that spot alive.
“This changes everything,” said Morel. “They were here, but they moved. And not alone.”
The final investigation revealed that Aitor had been seen in the area by local shepherds. One of the strongest hypotheses proposed that he found Julián and Clara after the accident. Instead of helping immediately, he tried to settle his personal conflict with Julián, demanding explanations at a critical moment. The argument may have escalated, causing a forced separation between the adults and leaving Clara completely vulnerable.
Aitor was temporarily detained, though he insisted on his innocence. He said that he did see Julián but that when he returned with help, they were no longer there.
The most painful question remains unanswered: what happened to Clara?
Search teams widened the search for weeks. Isolated traces were found, but never a body. Authorities now believe Clara may have been taken in—or held—by someone in one of the remote villages, or may have tried to walk on her own in search of help.
The case, reopened five years later, remains active. And although the mountain revealed much of its secret, it still hides its most important truth.
The girl may still be alive.