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It was a message asking anyone who found it to look after Clara if she had managed to leave the area. The note mentioned that someone had returned to them and behaved in an unsettling manner, making it difficult for the father and daughter to travel safely together. The message ended by urging whoever discovered it to provide care for his daughter if she was still somewhere in the mountains above.
The question lingered heavily: who had returned?
Years earlier, before the hike, Julián had experienced tension with a former coworker from a shared photography project. Their disagreement had been public and emotional. When investigators learned that this individual had been in the region during the week of the disappearance—something previously undisclosed—it created new questions. The man insisted he had tried to help but had been unable to locate the pair afterward.
Meanwhile, searchers exploring an upper path found a potential exit from the crevice leading into a forested zone far from the main trail system. There, scattered beneath leaves, lay the remains of an older campsite: a ring of stones from a small fire, a worn knife, and several food wrappers. Among the findings were pieces of clothing and a single, small shoe known to have belonged to Clara.
The absence of further physical evidence suggested something unexpected. Clara had not remained in that spot, but she also had not suffered the severe fate many had once feared. Investigators grew hopeful that she may have continued moving, possibly guided or assisted, or perhaps she encountered someone who took her in temporarily. Villages in the remote regions of the Pyrenees can be very isolated, and it was possible she had reached one of them.
