As hikers vanish, these mountains maintain tight to their mysteries

Written by Yan Zhuang
A blanket of fog hanging earlier than him, Lachlan Culican saddled up his horse one autumn morning and set off into the distant excessive nation of southern Australia to seek out two campers gone lacking.
Arriving on the grassy plain the place that they had pitched their tent, Culican was shocked by what he noticed. The campsite was burned to the bottom, with the campers’ charred belongings heaped in a pile. Deer carcasses have been strewn in regards to the valley. The campers have been nowhere to be discovered.
“There was nothing natural about it,” stated Culican, a 26-year-old cattle herder.
More than a 12 months later, the disappearance of the campers, Russell Hill and Carol Clay, each of their 70s, stays unsolved. Speculation has swirled. Was it a deadly run-in with unlawful deer hunters? A ruse so the campers, who weren’t married to one another, may run away collectively?
Around campfires, tall tales have blossomed within the absence of solutions. Often, they revolve round a neighborhood recluse, referred to as the Button Man, who dwells within the woods close to the campsite and spends his time carving buttons out of antlers.
There is not any proof that the Button Man had something to do with the disappearances or ever noticed Hill and Clay at their campsite. Nonetheless, his mere presence on this forbidding terrain has captured the nationwide creativeness — the embodiment, in an unlimited nation, of the unusual attract and abiding worry of locations so distant, they will swallow individuals up with no sound.
Photos launched by the Victoria Police present individuals who have disappeared in AustraliaÕs Wonnangatta Valley lately. Top left: Conrad Whitlock, high proper: Niels Becker, backside left: Carol Clay, backside proper: Russell Hill. (Victoria Police through The New York Times) 
The rumors and tales, each in regards to the Button Man and the lacking campers, mirror an innate need to seek out explanations for the inexplicable. But for a century and past, these mountains, greater than most locations, have held their secrets and techniques tightly.
A String of Misfortune
The cattlemen who as soon as roamed the rugged nation stretching tons of of miles northeast of Melbourne say it’s a straightforward place to vanish if you’re not cautious, or if you wish to.
Dingoes prowl the land, howling within the black of evening. Clear skies can flip to snow in a blink, even in summer season. Most of the panorama is accessible solely by horse or four-wheel drive within the hotter months and in no way within the winter.
“It’s remote and beautiful and unpredictable,” stated Graeme Stoney, 81, a neighborhood cattleman. “It creates its own legends and its own mysteries.”
Within this wilderness, a string of hikers and campers have met a destiny much like Hill’s and Clay’s lately.
In 2008, Warren Meyer, 57, an skilled hiker, set out on a comparatively simple 6-mile stroll in a nationwide park on a heat fall day and was by no means seen once more.
Potential clues collected. An escapee from a psychiatric ward who had homicidal tendencies was noticed across the space the place Meyer had vanished. Some individuals within the space reported listening to gunfire inside the identical interval. During a search, a marijuana plantation was uncovered. But Meyer’s disappearance has by no means been solved.
Three years later, the pinnacle of a Melbourne jail, David Prideaux, 50, went lacking whereas searching deer within the mountains. Some speculated that his disappearance could be associated to a jail killing of a gangland chief below his watch. For years afterward, supposed sightings of Prideaux have been reported across the nation.
In July 2019, Conrad Whitlock, 72, inexplicably left his home at 3 one morning and drove to the excessive nation. When the police later discovered his automotive deserted on the aspect of the street, his jacket, telephone and pockets have been all current. But he was not.
Three months later, Niels Becker, an avid bush walker, vanished in the course of a five-day hike. He had educated for months for the outing, which was timed for his thirty ninth birthday.
And then, in March 2020, Hill and Clay set out for what that they had advised their households can be a weeklong tenting journey — though that they had not talked about that they might be going collectively.
Once they arrived at their campsite, in a large valley nestled between snow-capped mountains, Hill, an newbie radio fanatic, dialed in to let fellow hobbyists know the place he was.
That was the final time anybody heard from both of them.
“The bush is very unforgiving, the Australian bush,” Greg Paul, a senior police officer, stated at a information convention final 12 months after Hill and Clay disappeared.
The police don’t imagine that any of the instances are linked. But that has not stopped individuals from questioning.
“It’s an extraordinary coincidence that this many people have gone missing,” Stoney, the cattleman, stated, “but you would hope they’ve all just misstepped and nothing else is involved.”
The Original Case
One thriller on this land of secrets and techniques has outlasted all the remaining and nonetheless haunts native residents, lots of whom are descendants of the chief protagonists.
It includes a double homicide that passed off 103 years in the past.
That sweltering summer season, the physique of Jim Barclay, 48, was present in a shallow grave not removed from the cattle station he managed. Suspicion instantly fell on the one different one that lived there: John Bamford, who cooked for Barclay. But Bamford couldn’t be questioned by authorities; he had vanished, solely to show up lifeless 9 months later, a bullet lodged in his cranium.
No one has ever been charged within the murders. The commonest principle is that Barclay was killed by Bamford, who was, in flip, shot by a good friend of Barclay’s in revenge. But individuals additionally speculate about an affair that Barclay was rumored to be having. Others say the 2 males may have had an altercation with cattle thieves.
Around the valley, the grandchildren of individuals straight or not directly concerned within the case at the moment are of their 70s and 80s. Each household has handed down its personal model of occasions, and so they usually contradict one another or the official document.
“There’s been many, many accusations from many families” and lots of names tarnished, stated Keith Leydon, a historian who wrote a guide in regards to the murders.
The prevailing sentiment is that the entire affair is greatest left with the ghosts.
“You try to ask a mountain cattleman, and he’ll say, ‘We don’t talk about it up here,’” Leydon stated.
One of these males is Rob “Choppy” Purcell, now retired. His silhouette — one in every of 4 males on horseback — is on the brand of the native pub within the city of Merrijig, on the base of the mountains. It was additionally on the beer koozie he was holding.
“Lots of people have written books about the area, but they don’t know what they’re talking about,” Purcell stated.
He spoke with the conviction of somebody who is aware of greater than the official document. But he was not prepared to expose particulars — to not outsiders.
Bruce McCormack, 63, whose household was one of many first to settle within the space, advised the story of how his grandfather, a very good good friend of one of many slain males, went right down to the valley to research not lengthy after the murders. He stayed there for 3 months, McCormack stated, and his message when he returned was, “Justice was done, and leave it alone.”
“There’s people who know more, but they’re all dying,” McCormack added, “and I’m not saying too much more either.”
A Man of Legend
More than 100 years after the murders, as native residents once more attempt to make sense of the lack of two individuals in unsure circumstances, a brand new set of tales blurring the road between fact and concrete legend have emerged.
These tales heart on the Button Man.
Locals emphasize that they don’t really suppose that the bush-inhabiting recluse, whose actual identify is unknown, had something to do with the disappearances of Hill and Clay. There is not any indication that the police contemplate him an individual of curiosity.
But his identify first grew to become linked to the case as a result of he had reportedly advised the police that he had encountered Becker, the hiker who vanished 5 months earlier than Hill and Clay.
With little else to elucidate the disappearances, consideration has centered on the Button Man. It is nearly assuredly unwelcome. Locals, who say guests now come to the mountains hoping for a run-in with the person of legend, fear about his security.
Campers and hikers say the Button Man seems out of the woods with no sound. Sometimes, he has a pleasant chat with them. Other instances, he appears agitated and grills them about what they’re doing.
In a few of the tales advised by those that have encountered him, he asks, “Do you want to see my button collection?” or, sometimes, “Do you want to see my ax collection?”
There are different tales much less often advised: People who know him a bit higher consult with him by the friendlier moniker Buttons. He is rumored to be serving to a college gather information in regards to the excessive nation and to be residing in Melbourne throughout the winter.
Those who see Buttons coming via Mansfield, the regional hub the place campers usually replenish earlier than heading farther into the mountains, say he’s pleasant and well mannered as he stops to get his automotive mounted or seize a chew to eat.
But many additionally joke to hikers earlier than they set out into the valley, “Be careful of the Button Man!”
“It’s just become a tall story told around campfires,” a neighborhood resident, Ben Large, stated from behind the counter of the Mansfield bike store.
In the sunshine of day, the cattlemen who know the valley greatest see its mysteries as nothing greater than particular person instances of dangerous luck strung collectively by coincidence.
But when pressed, they’re reluctant to utterly rule out the likelihood that there’s something else occurring. They share different tales of the mountains: a hulking furry creature that visits campers within the darkness, hikers who discover pictures of themselves on their cameras, taken by an unknown hand.
It is simple to think about that one thing could possibly be lurking within the bush when evening falls, fog covers the mountains and the tree branches scraping towards roofs sound like one thing alive.
“Darkness plays funny games,” stated Charlie Lovick, 71, a neighborhood farmer who finds new houses for retired racehorses. “That’s why you keep the fire going all night.”