72page

70 BACKPACKER 03.2014 Paul, a wiry, 57-year-old father of three, lef his home in Greeley, Colo- rado, nine days earlier, afer his 23-year-old daughter, Aubrey, failed to return from a weeklong trek in Langtang National Park. She’d been trav- eling in Asia for fve months, keeping in near-constant contact with her parents, when she started a solo hike in Langtang on April 21, 2010. A week passed, and a few days later her worried mother, Connie, contact- ed the U.S. Embassy in Kathmandu. Embassy ofcials told her that civil unrest—a Maoist uprising—might have delayed Aubrey in the moun- tains. But worry turned to panic afer another three days passed with no word. On May 16, Paul few to Kathmandu, vowing to bring his daughter home. With his elder son, Crofon, then 25, he joined a search already in progress. Now, as Paul hikes through the idyllic scenery, limping because of a recent surgery, he bounces between the sharp horror of imagining Aubrey lying dead at the bottom of a clif and the bright hope that he’ll simply stumble upon her, walking down the trail. Te physical pain doesn’t stop him, though it slows him down. Weeks earlier, he underwent hip surgery, and now the joint grinds in the socket. He fears it will pop out, paralyzing him in the muddy forest. Yet for days he hobbles amid searchers from the U.S. Embassy, local villages, guide services, the police, and the Nepali Army. With the help of a translator, Paul questions locals, calls for Aubrey, and searches—above the river, in the woods, in dark caves within the woods. Between May 4 and July 1, some 200 people will scour the vast alpine valley that slopes steeply toward the Tibetan border. By air, by foot, and by rope they search the main Langtang trail, both sides of the bloated, rushing river, all smaller paths, and remote monasteries tucked in the hills. An American named Scott MacLen- nan joins the search. He led medical trips in Langtang for a decade, and tells Paul that he suspects Aubrey fell victim to the young Army soldiers who act as rangers in Nepal’s national parks, and who have a reputation for abusing women. “None of the girls who ever worked for me in my medi- cal clinic would stay the night because it was next to an Army post,” he says. Ten again, it could have been the river, as some locals suggest. Te trail hugs the steep banks in places and crosses the churning water numerous times. Aubrey wouldn’t be the only trekker to fall victim to Nepal’s treach- erous terrain. But everyone has a theory. During the initial search and in the coming months, local Tamang villagers and others ofer a bewildering number of ideas. Some say they saw Aubrey board a helicopter in Langtang Village. Others blame hunters who walk at night, killing animals and people. One Dutch ex-pat, who runs a rescue organization in Pokhara, claims Aubrey’s death was sacrifcial, the work of witches who worship Kali, the Hindu goddess of death. Sev- eral Nepali men blame Aubrey, saying she must have acted “too free and frank,” inviting her own rape and murder. Or she’s being held by lamas in a remote monastery. Or she was abducted by sex trafckers and spirited away to Pakistan. A teenage Tamang psychic claims that three boys buried her beneath a pile of rocks, where the forest transitions to dun- colored tundra. If she was assaulted, it wouldn’t be the frst time a lone female trekker was attacked. Te possibilities would make anyone dizzy. Paul is a business lawyer and judge, accustomed to order and predictable rules. All he can think is Why, Au- brey? Why did you come here? He can’t see the epic mountains that drew her. Where she was excited by an exotic culture, he sees primitive people who can’t The first day’s walk up central Nepal’s Langtang Valley de- livers exactly what a trekker might hope for: suspension bridges draped with prayer flags, lush hillsides where white langur monkeys swing from larch trees, a glacier-fed river pouring out of the Hima- layas. It makes most hikers feel like skipping. It makes Paul Sacco feel like vomiting. P H O T O S B Y B E R N A R D C A S T E L E I N / N P L / M I N D E N P I C T U R E S ( T O P ) ; T R A C Y R O S S