Hrvoje Gold was 74 years old and was involved with the Croatian Mountaineering Association and the signage and mapping of thousands of kilometers of hiking trails in that country.
The foreign man who was found dead yesterday in Ribeiro Frio, next to the trout hatchery there, after having been reported missing the previous day while hiking on the Vereda dos Balcões trail, was a “prominent member of the Croatian Mountaineering Association”.
In a note published on the Association’s website, we can read that it was Hrvoje Gold, 74 years old, an engineer by training, with a distinguished university career, who had a strong connection to mountaineering, having held various positions in different associations of the sport.
Referring to the “tragic death” on the island of Madeira, they note the “exceptional mark” he left, emphasizing that “his premature departure is an irreparable loss for the mountaineering community in Croatia.”
Hrvoje Gold “remained active in mountaineering from the 1970s until the last day of his life,” they add, noting that he was an instructor in the sport and was involved in mapping hiking trails in Croatia, including several “Safe and Sustainable Mountaineering Infrastructure” projects, with more than 4,200 kilometers of routes mapped and more than 3,000 standardized signage boards installed in the last four years.
“He actively collaborated in the preparation and creation of dozens of mountaineering maps and in the creation of the web portal sigurnestaze.hr. He used his knowledge of programming, databases, innovative solutions in virtual reality and artificial intelligence to develop mountaineering,” we read in the same publication.
The man, who received several awards and distinctions for his work promoting mountaineering in Croatia and at the European level, would eventually lose his life after hiking one of Madeira’s most accessible classified trails, under circumstances that are still unknown.