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When he saw Esther Dingley coming up the mountain road from the town of Benasque, José Antonio Ballarín was not sure whether or not to stop his car.
Under Spain’s lockdown rules, the retired businessman shouldn’t have offered to take a stranger at all.
But something about the vision of the 37-year-old woman carrying a large khaki backpack made him stop.
Esther, who used to take elevators on hiking tours, got on and traveled with the 71-year-old and his grandson for five miles, chatting about their plans until they reached the trail leading to Pico Salvaguardia, or ‘safeguard peak’.
The last person to see missing hiker Esther Dingley (left) alive, José Antonio Ballarin (right), said she discussed her route with him, and it was different than what she was believed to be planning.
There, around 10:30 am on Saturday, November 21, he set off along the mountain path from a place known as Plan de l’Estany.
It was the day before the Oxford graduate was last seen in the Pyrenees.
In exclusive remarks to the Mail this week, Ballarin said Esther discussed her route with him, and it was different from what she was believed to be planning.
When he disappeared, he was thought to be in the middle of a multi-day hike, taking a circular route from Port de la Glere to Port de Venasque via Pico Salvaguardia.
Having left Benasque that Saturday morning, it was believed that Esther planned to spend Sunday night at the Venasque Refuge before returning to Port de la Glere and Benasque.
But previously he had changed his routes to avoid icy slopes or to avoid bad weather and in his conversation with Ballarin, conducted in French because she did not speak Spanish and he did not speak English, seemed to suggest that he was considering crossing the Pyrenees into France. .
He said he was going to the French city of Bagneres de Luchon and mentioned the city of Toulouse.
José Antonio Ballarin said that Esther discussed her route with him, and it was different from what she was believed to be planning.
With a mask on the front passenger seat of his Subaru 4×4, he tried to show him his route on his phone, but he couldn’t look closely because he was driving.
Esther’s conversation with Ballarin raises the possibility that she radically changed her plans at the last minute, perhaps explaining why there has been no sign of her despite extensive searches before the snowstorms began last week.
The Spanish and French police are believed to be considering the possibility that his disappearance was “voluntary”.
A senior officer involved in the search suggested that his partner Daniel Colgate, 38, with whom he has been traveling Europe in a caravan for six years, is considering settling down and that Esther feared the end of her nomadic lifestyle.
In the photo: Ms Dingley with her partner Daniel Colegate, who has been interviewed by the police three times about her disappearance, who say she is spoken to as a witness, not as a suspect.
Meanwhile, Ballarin is obsessed with the crossing of their paths. He said: ‘It’s terrible to think that I was one of the last people to see her alive.
But when I look back, I don’t think she was doing anything reckless. He seemed perfectly happy. There was nothing to worry about her.
“ She was just a capable young woman heading to the mountains for a few days of adventure. She seemed like a sensible young woman.
Since this conversation took place, it has become clear that Esther returned the following afternoon to Pico Salvaguardia after a short hike through the area.
This contradicts what he seemed to say to Mr. Ballarin.
A dog walker took this photo (above) of missing British hiker Esther Dingley’s caravan with the light on and someone sleeping in the back parked in Benasque, Spain, on December 2, ten days after her disappearance.
Their conversation took place several hours before Esther spoke to her partner, who guided investigators to her last known position and the route she told her she was on.
Rescue teams have also sought alternative routes.
Ballarin is understandably concerned. “I left her and that was the last I saw of her,” he said.
‘It was only a couple of days later that I found out that there was a missing person and that it was the woman he had taken. The police spoke to me and I gave them the same information. It’s horrible to think that something bad has happened to him.
An experienced hiker, Mr. Ballarin warns that the lakes in the area are very dangerous. The authorities do not rule out the possibility that Esther has fallen into the freezing water.
Dan Colegate, the British partner of missing hiker Esther Dingley, was looking for her alone in the Pyrenees earlier this week. In the picture: a map showing the likely route you thought you were taking
The so-called lakes of Boums are among those close to where Esther was last seen. Beyond these, which are near Bagneres de Luchon, there are many other deep-water ‘wells’, which can be dangerous.
France has specialized teams of ice divers capable of entering mountain lakes, but the problem in winter is getting them into position.
And without clear evidence that Esther fell into one, it would be impossible to send divers to all the lakes in the area.
Ballarin said: “I think if they searched those lakes properly with divers, there is a possibility that they will find Esther’s body and potentially even those of other mountaineers who have disappeared.
Esther Dingley, 37, was hiking in the Pyrenees mountains on the French-Spanish border when she disappeared, prompting a search and rescue operation that has since been suspended due to weather.
“Once you lose your balance and start falling off the mountains here, there is nothing to stop you.”
The last person to see Esther was the Spanish Olympic skier Martí Vigo del Arco, who came down from Pico Salvaguardia with his girlfriend on November 22 at around 3:00 p.m. when Esther was going up.
We know he made it to the top because of the last selfie he took there and the phone conversation he had with Dan just before 4pm.
A French investigative source said the possibility that she walked down the mountain and is somewhere in Spain or France has been “practically completely ruled out.”
The source added: ‘By now he would have contacted someone. She is a very intelligent and capable woman who understands her responsibilities. There’s no way I’m ignoring everyone. ”
Ballarin fears the worst. “I just hope he’s in some French city and hasn’t contacted for some reason because if he’s still in the mountains, I don’t see how he would have survived,” he said. “We have to think the worst.”
