The mysterious disappearance and death of Esther Dingley in the Pyrenees Mountains
Esther Dingley, disappeared November 22, 2020, Pic de Sauvegarde, Pyrenees, France/Spain. Bone Fragments found July 23, 2021. BODY DISCOVERED AUGUST 9, 2021.
Updated January 2024
The disappearance of Esther Dingley in the Pyrenees
The disappearance of 37-year-old Esther Dingley, in late November 2020 in the Pyrenees mountain range, between France and Spain baffled experienced search and rescue teams on both sides of the border.
She was from Durham in the U.K. and was an experienced mountain hiker and climber. She vanished while hiking alone from the Porte de la Glere to the Port de Venasque, along the border, and was last seen climbing the 8,983 feet high, Pic de Sauvegarde mountain.
Spanish mountain search and rescue teams used helicopters with loudspeakers to comb the most popular trails in the area. French authorities sent 16 people up the mountain, with national police experts joining two gendarme units.
Jorge Lopez Ramos, head of the Spanish mountain rescue team, told reporters that the failure to find her was very strange. “Now snow will cover the mountain. That means the search can’t resume with the same intensity until the spring.”
Esther had her cell phone off to conserve battery power, and coverage was patchy in the area. On the day she disappeared, the weather was fine and sunny, with only a light covering of snow.
Marti Vigo del Arco, a Spanish Olympic skier, told the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia that at around 3 pm on November 22, 2020, he was hiking down a trail high in the mountains with his girlfriend when they met an English woman coming the other way. Marti remembers thinking it was pretty late in the day to be climbing the Pic de Sauvegarde: “She was coming up, we were on the descent, she was very heavily loaded with a very big backpack. She asked us if we had a piece of fruit or something fresh, but we didn’t have anything. She carried on up.”
The couple did not pass anyone else coming up the mountain and are believed to have been the last people to have seen Esther.
At about 4 pm, after she met with Marti Vigo, she reached the 8,983-foot summit from where she sent a selfie to Dan Colegate, her partner of 18 years. According to searchers, after she sent the selfies, she had enough time before dark to reach the mountain refuge cabin where she had planned to spend the night. But there was no sign that she got there.
In July 2021, some human bone fragments were discovered, and DNA analysis was done by authorities to confirm the identity. These were confirmed to be Esther. Her belongings and the rest of her body were finally located on August 9, 2021, by her boyfriend, Dan.
The story of Dan Colegate and Esther Dingley
Esther Dingley and Dan Colegate were fitness fanatics who met at Wadham College, Oxford University. Esther was studying for a degree in economics and management, and Dan was studying chemistry.
They had been touring Europe in a camper van since 2014. Along the way, they hiked, cycled, and climbed during their six-year adventure.
Dan was proud of his working-class background in the northeast of England. His father was a milkman, while his mother worked in a call center.
Esther was born in Holland and grew up in the Buckinghamshire village of Stone in England. She had been a boarder at the $45,000 a-year Headington School in Oxfordshire, where she became a rowing fanatic, which eventually meant she represented Great Britain in the sport.
Colegate’s book, “What Adventures Shall We Have Today?: Travelling From More To Less In Search Of A Simpler Life”, was published in June 2020. It reminisces that after graduating with first-class degrees from Oxford University, they settled into successful academic careers. He worked a year at Oxford’s chemistry research laboratory while Esther completed a degree. He then insisted they move to Durham, where he had the offer to study for a PhD Post-graduate qualification, and she found a place on a master’s course.
Four years later, they moved to Cambridge, where Dan became a postdoctoral research assistant in the Department of Engineering. Esther obtained a fellowship at Wolfson College and was offered a PhD scholarship.
The couple had won a business competition to set up a network for early career researchers, which signed up 20,000 members from 80 countries. They also bought three buy-to-let properties, which left them heavily in debt.
Dan said, “It was around this time that any last traces of romance slipped away from us. We clung on to the belief that we still loved each other, but beneath all the animosity, it was hard.”
In 2013, they moved back to the northeast of England, where Colegate took an administration job at Newcastle University. Esther became a personal trainer, having been diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome. At this time, the couple had both been diagnosed with clinical depression.
Dan Colegate, Esther Dingley’s Partner
On Christmas 2013, Dan needed an emergency operation on an abscess from a surgery wound, which developed into necrotizing fasciitis, known as the “flesh-eating disease”, and they decided to get married in February 2014, despite Dan saying in his book that “what was supposed to be a chance to rediscover our love of one another did, at times, seem to have transformed into a festering pit of mutual loathing”. Following Dan’s serious illness, they decided to cancel their wedding and set off for a road trip around Europe.
Esther and Dan said they felt like“zombies sleepwalking through life” before they had put most of their possessions in a friend’s attic., and hit the road in 2014 to tour Europe in their camper van.
In the summer of 2019, Dan returned to Britain for family reasons while Esther went hiking alone for a month in the Pyrenees. He wrote: “This was the longest time we’d spent apart for years and ... finding herself alone in the wild was a significant step change…In many ways, the emotional and mental journey we’re on has grown more important than the physical one.”
Esther wanted to spend winters in the sun, but last year, instead of visiting Spain and Portugal, Dan arranged for them to stay in a remote farmhouse in the village of Arreau in the foothills of the Pyrenees. The couple returned to the farmhouse when Covid 19 hit in the spring of 2020.
Then, they realized that they had not been apart for a year during the coronavirus pandemic, so the couple decided to each do their own thing for a while in the Autumn of 2020. Esther said, “This whole thing has been really good for us individually and our relationship. We are genuinely happy now.”
Esther’s last hike
Esther had been well prepared for what was meant to be her last hike after a month of hiking by herself. Their last conversation had been about “how excited we were to see each other, as this was her last trip before driving back”.
At the end of October 2020, Esther left alone for a hike in the Pyrenees, crossing the border into Spain to avoid the strict French lockdown conditions. On November 15, she parked their Fiat Chausson camper van in the village of Benasque, which has become the focus of the search.
She was seen at the 7,000ft Angel Orus Refuge on November 17, where she seemed “in very good spirits”. In an Instagram post that day, she wrote: “I love carrying everything I need with me on my back. It gives me confidence and freedom ... because I know I have everything I need to survive with me.”
Snow forced her to abort that trip, and a Facebook post from November 19 said she had hiked down the mountain with a man who gave her a lift back to her camper van.
CCTV from later that day shows her looking “sad and thoughtful” in the supermarket in Benasque, and she was seen doing yoga next to her camper van.
Dan reported Esther missing three days later, on November 25, when she failed to appear at a planned rendezvous in Gascony, France. He was house-sitting a vineyard property. He later joined in the search, saying he was “broken and shattered that my beloved Esther, the person who taught me how to feel, is missing. I need her back. I can’t face the alternative.”
French police say they are investigating all possibilities, including foul play. They have been trying to locate the fellow hiker who had given Esther the lift down to Benasque, where she was staying, when the weather closed in during one of her earlier hikes. Police have examined the camper van called “Homer” she was using.
Rescue efforts were suspended on Friday, December 4, 2020, after a heavy snowfall that was expected to cover any tracks she may have left.
The mystery of what may have happened to this experienced hiker and trail runner has prompted many theories. But search dogs, helicopters, and drones have turned up no clues over the past two weeks. Some searchers have questioned whether she was on the mountain and perhaps left after her Facebook posts were published. Given the intensity of the search efforts and the fact that most of the trails were straightforward across open ground, they would have expected to find her.
As of December 6, 2020, Esther remains missing somewhere in the Pyrenees Mountains.
What happened to Esther Dingley?
Misadventure? - It was getting dark when she posted on social media back in November 2020, but searchers are baffled as to why they haven’t found Esther or her body. She had dark clothes and a grey rucksack, which could easily blend into the surrounding rocks and vegetation. At the time of her disappearance, snow was light in the area. Jose María Ciria, a hotelier in Benasque, said: "Walking from here is very dangerous. There is snow and ice in the mountains. It seems an atrocious idea at this time of year."
Was she abducted or murdered on the mountain?
Update December 12, 2020
Police are now concentrating on the theory that she has deliberately gone missing because she feared her nomadic lifestyle was about to end.
French and Spanish officers are focusing their investigations on a “voluntary disappearance” as heavy snowfall means they have had to cancel searches of mountains where she was last seen three weeks ago.
They discovered that Esther was concerned that her partner, Daniel Colegate, was considering settling in a camper van following their six-year road trip around Europe. Dan has been interviewed by police three times but was not considered a suspect.
A spokeswoman for the Spanish Civil Guard search team in Huesca province said that the search for Esther had been difficult as she had not told anyone her exact route for her final hike. “There is lots of vegetation in this area,” she said. “People can fall in places that are almost impossible for us to see. The last few days have been very windy, a meter and a half of snow fell near where we believe she went missing.”
“Even officers get lost from time to time,” she added. One officer recently took shelter in a refuge during bad weather where there was no mobile telephone signal and was deemed missing for several days.
Statement from Dan Colegate January 2021
In mid-January 2021, Dan Colegate issued a statement through the Lucie Blackman Trust (LBT), supporting missing people's families.
He said, “She had successfully gone up and down the same peak the previous day. If she had found it hard, she wouldn’t have gone back alone. Esther is adventurous but not a gratuitous risk-taker.”
Colegate added that Esther is a very experienced hiker with ample supplies, but no trace of her has been found.
Regarding the possibility of voluntary disappearance, the dossier said: “This is totally out of character in every way. Also, Esther has no motive or means to do so. She hasn’t accessed any funds. There were no large cash withdrawals in the weeks leading up to her trip. Finally, she was already doing her own thing as part of her usual relationship with Dan. She didn’t need to vanish to get time to herself.”
At the time of Esther’s, France was under national lockdown, and exercise was meant to be taken within 1km of someone’s home. The document said: “However, that doesn’t mean that nobody could have been up there and that somebody who was breaking the rules didn’t see an opportunity when encountering a lone female hiker. With the additional knowledge that nobody else should be nearby and so close to a road, an individual with a weapon could feasibly force somebody back to their vehicle.
At the time of Esther’s disappearance, it was supposed to be hunting season. “In such a mountainous location, there is no practical way to police anybody choosing to ignore the Covid restrictions. This is not to say Esther was harmed by a hunter, just that the possibility of Esther encountering an individual with a weapon remains. Given that the intensive search found no trace of her, this is why the criminal investigation is absolutely necessary.”
“The pain of her disappearance is excruciating, but even that pales into insignificance against the pain of not knowing what’s happened to her.”
Discovery of remains on July 23, 2021
On Friday, July 23, 2021, two Spanish hikers found a skull with long hair lying among boulders on the French approach to Port de la Glère.
Police searched the site but could not find anything belonging to Esther, including her clothes, bright yellow tent, and grey and red rucksack.
French police chief Jean-Marc Bordinaro said: “We cannot say anything at the moment because the discovery of the bones is too recent and they must be properly analyzed”.
Spanish police are reported to believe that a heavy snow shower in the area where Esther vanished may have covered her body if she had slipped and fallen. Snowfall forced police on both sides of the border to suspend their search.
Confirmation that remains were Esther Dingley
On July 30, 2021, the remains were confirmed to be Esther's. Daniel Colegate and mother Ria Bryant said in a statement, "Search and rescue teams intend to continue their search on foot and with drones, particularly trying to find some sign of Esther's equipment to understand how this tragedy occurred.
We have all known for many months that the chance we would get to hug our beloved Esther again, to feel her warm hand in ours, to see her beautiful smile, and to watch the room light up again whenever she arrived was tiny but with this confirmation that small hope has now faded. It is devastating beyond words.
At this stage, the details of what happened and where remain unknown with just a single bone found and no sign of equipment or clothing in the immediate area (which has been closely searched again over several days).
The search and rescue teams intend to continue their search on foot and with drones, particularly trying to find some sign of Esther's equipment to understand how this tragedy occurred.”
LBT Global's chief executive, Matthew Searle, said, "This is the tragic end we have all feared. This is devastating news for Esther's loved ones - never before have I seen such incredible determination as that showed by Daniel in his relentless physical search of the mountains."
August 10, 2021 Update
The body of missing hiker Esther Dingley and her equipment were finally found together in the Pyrenees on the afternoon of August 9, 2021, by her partner Daniel Colegate, close to where a bone was discovered in late July.
An LBT Global statement said: "At this stage, an accident is the most likely hypothesis, given the location and other early indications. A full investigation is underway to confirm the details surrounding this tragedy.
"The family remain incredibly grateful for the efforts of the police units involved and their commitment to understanding the exact circumstances of Esther's death."
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Sources
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