Captain Morel, who had participated in the original search five years earlier, opened the backpack wearing gloves. Inside he found a dented metal bottle, bagged food scraps, a crumpled map… and something that chilled him to the bone: Clara's blue notebook, recognized by everyone during the investigation.
The media pressure returned with a vengeance. The family was alerted, and journalists from both sides of the border blocked the access roads. But the mountain wasn't about to give up answers easily.
The crevice where the backpack was found was barely fifty centimeters wide, but it extended several meters downwards and much further upwards. According to experts, it was possible that Julián had tried to descend at a nearby point looking for a shortcut or shelter, and that they had become trapped.
However, Captain Morel wasn't convinced. There was something odd about it: the backpack was barely damaged, with no signs of a long fall. Furthermore, the map included a pen mark that hadn't been present when the copies had been examined five years earlier.
"This doesn't add up," Morel whispered to one of the technicians. "If Julián wrote this after he got lost... we need to find out why."
The reopened investigation became a puzzle. And what the team found the next day, as they descended deeper into the crevice, completely changed the interpretation of the case.
The rescuers began their descent at dawn. They set up ropes, anchors, and thermal sensors. The crevice was narrow and damp, and every meter seemed to swallow the light. The sound of the wind faded 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 part of Julián's windbreaker. It was torn, but not from a sudden fall; rather, it seemed to have been intentionally ripped off, like a mark or sign.
"This is deliberate," Morel said. "Julian was trying to leave a trail."
The theory fit with something that had always worried the family: Julián was an experienced hiker. It wasn't logical that he would have disappeared on a moderately difficult trail. But if he had chosen an alternative route for some reason, perhaps to take shelter from a sudden storm, it would make sense that he would try to navigate using trail markers.
Three meters further down they found the second clue: a small metallic wrapper, with an expiration date two years after the disappearance. That left them perplexed. It seemed to indicate that someone—not necessarily Julián—had brought food there after 2020.
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