Kin hikes reward for American trekker missing in Nepal

KATHMANDU - Almost two months after a young American hiker went missing in Nepal, her family Wednesday trebled the reward for anyone who found her, refusing to call off their month-long search and rejecting the possibility that she may not be alive.

Paul Sacco, a former soccer player who travelled to Nepal last month to search for his 23-year-old daughter Aubrey, who went missing during a hike in the Langtang National Park in northern Nepal, said his family is now offering a reward of NRs.300,000 to anyone who finds her.

Aubrey, who was on a “voyage of self-discovery” that took her to Sri Lanka, India and then Nepal, had planned to trek in Nepal and then do voluntary service.

She entered the Langtang trail April 20, according to park records, staying overnight at the Namaste Hotel.

On April 22, she had lunch at the Lama Hotel and then simply vanished into thin air.

Her family in Colorado initially thought she was late in communicating with them due to the general strike called by Nepal’s opposition Maoist party last month that caused hundreds of tourists to be stranded.

However, when the silence stretched on, her father arrived in Nepal with her brother Crofton to retrace her trail and try to find her or at least people who had seen her.

In their anxiety, they have even consulted psychic Buddhist monks who say Aubrey is alive though hindered by a negative presence that is causing her “to make mistakes”.

A search is also on for a Canadian or American, tentatively identified as Mitch, who had travelled with the young woman to Kathmandu from India.

There were indications by Aubrey that she was growing tired of his presence and wanted to shake him off. Paul Sacco thinks it is “peculiar” that the man did not contact any of the authorities in Nepal or US even though Aubrey’s disappearance is now on the national news in the US as well.

The new reward announcement comes even as the US State Department issued a travel advisory asking Americans not to travel to Nepal.

Aubrey Sacco’s disappearance is the latest in a string of incidents involving western tourists, mostly travelling alone.

In December 2008, British trekker Julian Wynne disappeared in the Everest region. In 2006, Kristina Kovacevic, a German trekker, was found dead in northern Nepal with police saying she fell down a mountain and her sister Karoline alleging foul play.

In 2005, German tourist Sabine Gruneklee and Celine Henry from France went missing after they entered the Nagarjuna forest on the outskirts of Kathmandu valley on separate days. Gruneklee’s body was found a year later but the French volunteer is still listed as missing.

Between 2003 and 2004, three more tourists went missing, including an Indian, Kushagra Vasant Singh, from Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh.