Hiker missing in Jotunheimen, since Sunday June 4

[old_hand]

A Dutch 26-yr. old woman, Marijke Vervoort, is missing in the Jotunheimen since early June. She was last seen on June 4, a Sunday, by the owners of the SPITERSTULEN HUT. She should have returned to Holland last weekend, but nobody heard from her anymore ever since Sunday June 4 when she paid for her lodging and left the Spiterstulen hut. She was hiking alone.

This is a photo of Marijke Vervoort =>

She is 1.67 m' tall, weighs approx. 50 kilo, blond hair, brown eyes.

Police and relatives of the woman are in the park already, and a search on the ground has started last Tuesday. But the Jotunheimen is a very big area, and nobody knows Marijke's itinerary or where she wanted to go after leaving Spiterstulen Hut.

Were you there, and did you perhaps see her?

Or do you know of hikers/backpackers who walked in the park early June, and may have met her? Is there anyone here who happens to know what itinerary she had in mind?

Time is of the essence! Maybe she had an accident, maybe she is injured, maybe she lost her way out there completely. If you have any valuable tips or ideas re. the organisation of the present searchefforts, please send an e-mail right away to:

[email protected]

That is the address to contact relatives and friends, who are in direct contact with the Oppland (Lom) Police and the searchteams.

Thank you.

Edited June 18: to make a correction re. the date she left the hut; in earlier communications it was sometimes suggested she left on Monday June 5. This is not true. She left Spiterstulen Hut on Sunday June 4 ("Whitsuntide Sunday" or "Pfingst Sonntag").

Attention moderator: if this appeal for information and help is posted in the wrong forum, then please move it to where it should be. I'm afraid I can't read your language... Thanks.

[morten]

The post is ok in this forum for as long as it may be of relevance. The story is also already mentioned on another thread on this board:

https://www.fjellforum.no/index.php?app=forums&module=forums&controller=topic&id=5602

Where one woman replied having been on Spiterstulen that day, but without any significant observations.

On our trip yesterday in Jotunheimen we were overflown by the search-chopper.

My sincere symphaty goes to the family and friends and I really hope this case will be solved soon.

[old_hand]

Thank you morten.

Just so you'll all understand: myself I'm no relative or even friend of this poor woman; just trying to help out with posting a few more appeals on the web. And from every posting or contact, I'm sending a link or a copy to the main contact-address mentioned in my post. So Marijke's family stays informed about what happens on the internet in the meantime.

I've managed to find an online automatic translator for Norwegian, and read the reply that Astrid gave in the other thread with much interest. Still, an automatic translation is a poor way to understand a language you're not familiar with, and even more so if it's all about a region you have never been to. So I'm grateful that you say that her observations are not significant in view of Marijke's disappearance.

If anyone should read or hear something "more alarming" in that respect, naturally we hope you'll be able to contact Steinar Angard of the Lom Police (who is in charge of the searchoperations), or the relatives, right away.

[old_hand]

Perhaps I should still add here, because I don't know if that was emphasised in the Norwegian press, that this woman is a graduated physician (medical doctor).

As her age tells, she graduated not so long ago. But her medical knowledge is far more professionally trained than that of an average hiker or trekker. And entirely depending on WHAT happened to her, this knowledge máy mean she is better able to keep herself alive out there, even if she would be injured.

[Astrid H]

Perhaps I should still add here, because I don't know if that was emphasised in the Norwegian press, that this woman is a graduated physician (medical doctor).

As her age tells, she graduated not so long ago. But her medical knowledge is far more professionally trained than that of an average hiker or trekker. And entirely depending on WHAT happened to her, this knowledge máy mean she is better able to keep herself alive out there, even if she would be injured.

Hei,

jeg kan fortelle at jeg har kontaktet Lom lensmannskontor og fortalt det jeg vet så nøyaktig som jeg kan. Jeg har også sendt en mail til den adressen som ble oppgitt her i fjellforumet. Det er viktig at de kartlegger alle som var i området, så hvis noen andre som også var i området leser dette vil jeg oppfordre dem til å kontakte Lom lensmannskontor. Jeg tror det kan ha interesse for politiet selv om det ikke var akkurat på Spiterstulen. Vi gikk nemlig dagen etter på Loftet. Vi var ikke på toppen, men vi så noen ferske spor og antok at de var fra dagen før.

[old_hand]

Thanks for your reply, Astrid (even if it was a bit of a puzzle to understand it...)

The trouble with these situations is that often the fellow travellers/hikers who may have séén the missing person or know where she wanted to go, have left the area meanwhile to go to another location. After all, they are on holiday.

That doesn't go for the local population she may have met with and spoken to, but to find other hikers back it takes the media and tools like (travel)webforums. I'm hoping that others who know of more webforums for hiking in Jotunheimen, comparable to the Fjellforum, have posted searchappeals there in the past few days as well, to help raise awareness.

This seems to be a new presspublication, of this morning (Saturday)

http://www.nrk.no/nyheter/distrikt/hedmark_og_oppland/1.613791

"Leteaksjon utvides i Jotunheimen"

© 2006 Opphavsrett NRK

Mannskap fra Lom, Bøverdalen og Vågå Røde Kors ble lørdag morgen satt inn i søket etter den nederlandske kvinnen som er savnet i Jotunheimen.

Av Torvild Sveen . Publisert

Lensmann Steinar Angard sier letemannskapene skal gå ruten fra Spiterstulen til Gjendebu. - Det er en lang rute og vi vil søke opptil 200 meter utenfor den vanlige traseen, sier Angard. 26 år gamle Marijke Vervoort forsvant etter et opphold på Spiterstulen i pinsehelgen.

Ser etter alle spor

Lensmann Steinar Angard sier at de også vil, om det blir tid i helgen, prøve å søke forbi Gjendebu og innover mot Gjende. - Det er en lang marsj vi setter i gang, men vi vil søke i et belte på rundt 200 meter fra den normale traseen. I tillegg er vi sjølsagt oppmerksom på de sidestier som finnes, sier Angard. I tillegg har hjelpekorpset med seg kikkerter slik at de også får et overblikk over terrenget de går i.

Familien på plass

Familien til den savnede, hennes mor og bror, er kommet til området og de følger leteaksjonen time for time. Lensmannen i Lom har også fått bistand fra drapsetterforsker Sturla Osen fra Kripos, skriver VG. - Vi har langt på veg snakket med de fleste som var innom Spiterstulen i pinsehelgen. Men nå denne helga vil vi først og fremst konsentrere oss om letingen ute i terrenget, sier Steinar Angard til NRK.

[old_hand]

It's a Sunday meanwhile, and even with the searchefforts intensified there still seems to be no significant news.

So let me just post the links to two more newsstories, both published yesterday June 17.

One (Nettavisen) also has another photo of Marijke.

http://www.gd.no/artikkel.asp?Artid=184953

"Blir til Marijke er funnet "

http://www.nettavisen.no/innenriks/article662580.ece

"Trapper opp letingen"

[old_hand]

Some of the latest publicised news (published yesterday June 19) looks real grim:

http://www.vg.no/pub/vgart.hbs?artid=120158

http://www.gd.no/artikkel.asp?Artid=185219

http://www.oa.no/Innenriks/article2155485.ece

All three articles report about "special" dogs being brought in from Oslo, dogs trained in finding back a dead body.

Several forumusers, inside or outside of Norway, have their own ideas and thoughts about where the missing woman may have gone, what may have happened, and what police could perhaps (in addition to what they're doing already) investigate, to establish more of her whereabouts.

Let me urge all of you who seriously think you have something relevant and useful to say/report, to simply get in touch with the Lom police right away. The contact-details, including an e-mailaddress, for the Lom Lensmannskontor can be found here

http://app.norge.no/styresmakter/liste.asp?tail=21803

(I'm probably assuming correctly that they have enough staff at present to deal with increased communications and an extra amount of incoming e-mails, faxes and phonecalls).