Identification of the body is in progress. Sunday, a 46-year-old hiker from Epinal, used to the mountains, left alone on Sunday for a walk in the Metzeral sector (Haut-Rhin). His disappearance was reported to the gendarmes on Monday, and his car found that same day in a parking lot at the foot of the Hohneck, on the edge of the Vosges and Haut-Rhin. The Vosges gendarmerie launched a call for witnesses on Tuesday.
Thursday evening, a lifeless body was found Thursday evening. “We have elements which suggest that it is about this person, but for the moment the identification is not formal”, added the gendarmerie, specifying that the operation to recover the body was “in course ”Friday morning.
Marks in the snow
The body was discovered the day before in a place “very difficult to access and dangerous” by the gendarmes of the mountain gendarmerie platoon (PGM) of Xonrupt-Longemer and Hohrod, specializing in mountain rescue. “It is a gendarme of the PGM of Xonrupt” who followed a track where he found “marks in the snow and followed one of the marks”, specified the police.
Significant resources have been used for the research: two dog teams, a helicopter and drones “in support of the mountain groups” of the Vosges and Haut-Rhin gendarmerie have been engaged.