It’s been quiet for nine days now. No clues, no missing person report, no trace that suggests anything bad might have happened. At six o’clock in the morning on Sunday, April 28th, hikers on the way to the Erlakogel (1,575 meters above sea level) near Rindbach in Ebensee discovered a backpack leaning against a tree stick.
Apparently someone had parked it just 200 meters below the summit. Maybe so that you no longer have to carry heavy things. Because inside the backpack there was food that would have been enough to satisfy the hunger of more than one person, carefully packed in Tupperware and wrapped in cellophane.
- From the archive: Mysterious find on the Erlakogel: Police are asking for information
Also: a pair of short men’s jogging pants, size L, a charging cable and a receipt from the Czech supermarket “Tesco” in Prague. The purchase was made on April 13 at 11:36 a.m. Five minutes later, the alleged owner of the backpack exchanged 597 Czech crowns for euros.
Because an Alpine accident could not initially be ruled out, Alpine police searched the site for clues and the helicopter circled over the Erlakogel several times. Result: none.
Backpack was snowed in
The police then asked for information, and last Friday the Czech press also tried its luck: The news portal “Info.cz” reported in detail about the “mysterious case” in Upper Austria, hoping that compatriots could come forward.
The police now assume that this is not a case of missing persons, but rather a case of forgetfulness. “There are no reports of missing persons, not even among our colleagues in the Czech Republic,” says Bernhard Magritzer, head of the Gmunden Alpine Police. Magritzer assumes that there was a Czech hiking group that climbed the Erlakogel between April 13th and 15th. The fact that the backpack was not discovered for so long is probably due to the onset of winter, which arrived in the Salzkammergut on April 16th with up to 70 centimeters of fresh snow. The backpack only came out again due to the mild temperatures. There was no mention of it in the summit book either: “Unfortunately, that was completely written out,” says Magritzer.
The most likely variant is that the Czech hiker had carried provisions for at least one other mountain companion in his backpack, left it shortly before the summit and forgotten it during the descent. After all, getting back up in the valley would have been too difficult for him. “We investigated in all directions because a fully loaded backpack in the middle of the terrain is of course unusual,” says Magritzer.
- From the archive: Backpack triggered a search on the Traunstein
A similar search operation took place on the Traunstein in August 2019: a 28-year-old Frenchman had left his backpack on the Hernlersteig because the climb had become too strenuous for him. He could then at least be reached by telephone at the Gmundnerhütte.
My themes
For your saved topics were
new articles found.
info By clicking on the icon you can add the keyword to your topics.
info
By clicking on the icon you open your “my topics” page. They have of 15 keywords saved and would have to remove keywords.
info By clicking on the icon you can remove the keyword from your topics.
Add the topic to your topics.
Source: Nachrichten
