On January 11, the Blue Sky Rescue Team received a request for help from villagers in Yanhekou Village, Zhaitang Town, Mentougou District, who reported that a family member had gone hiking and never returned, losing contact. The rescue team found the man’s body under a cliff on the mountain around 8 p.m. The police have since launched an investigation.
According to a person in charge of the Blue Sky Rescue Team, they received a call from the family around noon on the 11th. The family said that on the morning of the 10th, their relative had gone hiking near Mentougou, and had last been in contact around noon at the mountaintop, after which they had not returned and requested assistance. The Blue Sky Rescue Team immediately organized 28 members to join the search.
The rescue team explained that the mountain is about 1,000 meters above sea level and quite steep. By that time, it was getting dark, and the temperature on the mountain was around minus seventeen or eighteen degrees Celsius, so they had to find the person before nightfall. There were no proper paths down the mountain, so the team analyzed that the man might have fallen off a cliff while sliding down a gully during descent. They then began searching along some steep gullies.
The rescue team found a backpack on a mountain path, and then searched along a nearby branch gully. Around 8 p.m., they discovered a man lying on tree branches at the bottom of a cliff about ten-plus meters high, located 800 meters up the mountainside. After being identified by the family, the man was confirmed to be their missing relative.
A person in charge of the Blue Sky Rescue Team stated that according to the family, the man was 58 years old, lived in the city, but his hometown was in Mentougou. He would return to Mentougou to stay for about a week almost every month.
At around 9 a.m. on the 10th, he rode a motorcycle to hike on the mountain behind the village. Around noon, he called his family saying he had reached the mountaintop and would be home by around 5 p.m.
Later, the family found that the man had not returned home on time, so they went to look for him, but only found the motorcycle parked by the roadside, with no sign of the man. The family immediately called the police and carried out searches that night and the next day, before seeking help from the Blue Sky Rescue Team at noon on the following day.
The police have since launched an investigation.
This post has been synchronized to the Weibo account of "Mammoth Through History".