The body of Jay Slater was found in a deep and desolate ravine less than two miles from where he was last seen in Tenerife.
MailOnline was told today that the 19-year-old apparently plunged to his death while walking along a treacherous ridge in the Baranco Juan Lopez area of the Rural de Teno national park.
Local residents who know the area have speculated that he may have fallen while heading towards the sea so he could follow the coast to return to his hotel.
Our reporter retraced the last movements of Jay, following a path which led part way to the ravine where he died, and compiled a map believed to show the most complete picture of his final, fatal journey.
The almost inaccessible spot where he died is only a few hundred yards from areas which were repeatedly searched for almost a month by police, volunteers and members of his family after his disappearance on June 17.
Jay Slater was found dead at around 10am on Monday July 15 after almost a month of searching by Spanish authorities
Mail reporter Andrew Young at the Barranco Juan Lopez hiking path, close to where Jay Slater’s body was found
The ravine where Jay Slater is thought to have been found is pictured to the right of this image
The cactus-lined path is popular with hikers but the trail comes to an abrupt stop as the terrain turns more treacherous
A MailOnline reporter tried to scramble down the path towards the ravine before turning back, deeming it too dangerous to follow the route Jay may have taken
Jay Slater’s father Warren and brother Zak (left and right) have previously visited the area in the search for Jay – unaware his body was lying nearby
His father Warren Slater was previously photographed on a number of occasions walking along paths in the area, as he desperately hunted for any sign of the teenager without realising that his body was lying nearby.
Several villagers said that they had seen police activity in the ravine yesterday morning as his body was recovered by helicopter.
A video was also released by police showing members of the search team being winched back up to a helicopter.
The remote area, which is usually only accessed by climbers with proper ropes and equipment, is around a mile from the phone mast which linked to Jay’s phone before his battery ran out.
A MailOnline reporter went half a mile down the twisting track which leads from the main road and heads down the Juan Lopez valley towards the ravine.
The cactus-lined path is easy to walk on and takes hikers into the valley, passing a seemingly abandoned hut, before it suddenly comes to an abrupt stop.
It is believed that Jay followed the track and then scrambled down a perilous slope to try and continue his journey to the sea through rocky scrubland.
But the geography of the area changes and becomes dramatically more craggy as the valley gets closer to the coastline.
Jay would have had to climb up rocky outcrops at the end of the valley, leading up to steep ridges with sheer drops into a ravine below.
A local man who climbs in the area and asked not to be named said: ‘It is extremely dangerous terrain.
‘I have been in the area, but only with proper ropes and equipment. There is a ravine with tall cliffs and sheer rock faces either side.
‘You can walk along ridges and there are places that you have to climb, but an inexperienced person could easily fall.’
MailOnline decided it was too dangerous to leave the path and climb down the rocky and sandy slope leading to the ravine around 350 yards away.
A reporter who scrambled down just a few feet from the path nearly fell over on the uneven ground.
Jay Slater’s body was discovered at around 10am on Monday in a hazardous mountain area on Tenerife after a month-long search
Jay Slater pictured with his mother, Debbie Duncan, who said the confirmation of her son’s death was the ‘worst news’
Ms Duncan (pictured), has paid tribute to her ‘beautiful boy’ after the missing British teenager’s body was tragically found on Tenerife
Jay Slater’s final Snapchat at the remote Airbnb before he went missing. It is not the same Snapchat as the one where he is said to have admitted to stealing an expensive watch
Jay Slater is alleged to have posted on Snapchat that he had stolen a £12,000 Rolex watch from a reveller and planned to sell it for £10,000 (stock image of a Rolex watch)
The Guardia Civil released video footage of the search efforts undertaken to find Jay. A helicopter was called in to help with the recovery of his body
The £40-a-night remote Airbnb in the remote village of Masca where Jay spent his final hours before going missing
But views from the rugged spot where the path ends, show the sea appearing tantalisingly close behind rocks which looked deceptively easy to climb.
It is easy to believe how Jay might have thought that he could easily climb over the craggy rocks to reach the sea beyond, and then head back along a beach.
Once he was on the rocky ridge, he may have felt that he had to press on to the sea and that he could not turn back as he had gone so far.
The whole valley was eerily deserted today with the silence only broken by the cries of a crow soaring on thermals, and the wind whistling around rocky outcrops.
Italian teacher Luca Pischedda, 52, from Sardinia, who was on a hiking holiday in Tenerife with friends, said: ‘These mountains can be treacherous. If you lose a path, and try and climb, it is easy to fall down.
‘We are trying to keep to the paths rather than climb up the rocks. We have found paths closed because of a big fire last year.
‘It is not an area where you would want to be walking alone. We are very sorry to hear what happened to this boy.’
Jay, from Oswaldtwistle in Lancashire, vanished following a night out when he attended the final day of the NRG music festival at Papagayo nightclub in the resort of Playa de las Americas.
The apprentice bricklayer left his friends when he went off with two men who drove him back to their Airbnb accommodation on the outskirts of the village of Masca, around 20 miles away in the north of the Spanish holiday island.
While in the car, Jay allegedly sent a Snapchat message to his friends boasting that he had just stolen a £12,000 Rolex watch from a reveller and was going to sell it for £10,000.
He later shared a photo on his Snapchat account, which showed him standing at the doorway of a house shortly after 7am.
Around an hour later he called his friend Lucy Law, telling her that he was ‘lost in the mountains with one per cent battery and no water’ and had missed a bus back south to his accommodation in Los Cristianos.
Spanish police searching for Jay Slater on Tenerife last month. The large-scale search operation was called off on June 30 – but mountain rescue experts continued to look for Jay
Family members, aided by locals and friends, continued looking for Jay in the valley near the village of Masca earlier this month
Jay is thought to have ventured towards this ravine in an effort to find his way home after missing a bus
Jay was on his first-ever friends holiday with Lucy Law (pictured) and Brad Hargreaves when he went missing in Tenerife
He claimed he had set off on foot to try and get back to his hotel, despite it being around 11 hours away.
MailOnline later found a witness who revealed that he had walked north out of the village, instead of taking the winding road south towards Los Cristianos.
Locals have speculated that he may have decided that it might have been quicker for him to find the coast and walk back along it, rather than trek along the winding road back through the mountains.
But even if Jay had made it the sea after climbing over the rocks, he would not have been able to easily walk along the coast from the spot because most of the coastline is cliffs.
Although there is a small beach at Juan Lopez, it is only accessible by boat.
Spanish officials confirmed today that documentation belonging to Jay had been found with his body which had multiple injuries, and everything pointed to him dying in an accidental fall.
The Canary Islands High Court of Justice confirmed that his body was found near the village of Masca.
At a court hearing on Tuesday, a spokesman said: ‘Fingerprinting confirms that the body belongs to Jay Slater and the death was due to multiple traumas compatible with a fall in the mountainous area.’
Spanish authorities have refused to say whether Jay was found with the Rolex he is alleged to have stolen from a fellow reveller.
His mother Debbie Duncan said following the confirmation of Jay’s identity: ‘The worst news. I just can’t believe this could happen to my beautiful boy. Our hearts are broken.’
Jay’s friend Lucy Law, who was the last known person to speak to him during a phone call on June 17, issued a tribute on her Instagram page.
She said: ‘Honestly lost for words. Always the happiest and most smiley person in the room, you was (sic) one of a kind Jay and you’ll be missed more than you know.
‘I’m sure you’ll “have your dancing shoes polished and ready” waiting for us all. We all love you buddy. Fly high.’
Amid questions over how his body was missed for 29 days, Jay’s family said they could ‘appreciate the remoteness’ of the area and said he ‘would most likely have been killed instantly’.
The valley surrounding the village of Masca on Tenerife’s west coast is popular with hikers
A helicopter was deployed to aid with the recovery of Jay Slater’s body (file photo of a Civil Guard helicopter looking for Jay on June 29)
TV detective Mark Williams-Thomas (pictured) travelled to Tenerife to help in the search for Jay Slater
Friends have shared tributes to Jay on social media after his body was found on Monday
His friend Lucy Law said she was ‘honestly lost for words’ when Jay’s body was found
A family spokesman told MailOnline before the hearing: ‘The whole family is absolutely broken. They are devastated. It’s not the outcome they were hoping for.
‘Initially they thought ‘how could he be so close and yet be missed?’, but now having seen the location they appreciate the remoteness of it and there is no criticism of the search.
‘It looks as if he fell from a height so he would most likely have been killed instantly and he wasn’t there for a long time.
‘There will be a PM [post-mortem] in Tenerife and probably one in the UK and repatriation should be within a week or so it’s all time dependent.’
The apprentice bricklayer was attending the three-day NRG music festival with friends before his disappearance.
Video from the early hours of June 17 shows Jay partying the night away at Papagayo nightclub in the tourist resort of Playa de las Americas in the south of the island.
At around 5am, Jay left the Veronicas strip and got into a Seat Leon hire car with convicted drug dealer Ayub Qassim, 31, and Qassim’s unnamed friend, who he had met earlier on the holiday.
They travelled to Qassim’s £40-a-night Airbnb, Casa Abuela Tina, in the remote village of Masca – around an hour’s drive away from Playa de las Americas.
While in the car Jay allegedly sent a Snapchat message to his friends boasting that he had just stolen a £12,000 Rolex watch from a reveller and was going to sell it for £10,000.
At Casa Abuela Tina, Jay posted a picture on Snapchat at 7.30am of him standing in the doorway of the property having a cigarette – with the location tagged as being in Rural de Teno park, near Masca. The men he went back with were deemed ‘not relevant’ to the investigation by Spanish police.
Half an hour later, the teenager decided to try and make his way back to his accommodation and was spotted at a bus stop outside the Airbnb.
After missing a bus, he called his friend Lucy Law between 8.15am and 8.30am, telling her he was attempting to walk back to his accommodation – a journey that would take around 11 hours.
In the frantic last phone call, Jay said he had ‘cut his leg’ on a cactus and had ‘no idea where he was’.
Lucy said her friend told her he was ‘lost in the mountains, he wasn’t aware of his surroundings, he desperately needed a drink and his phone was on 1 per cent’.
Jay’s phone ran out of battery shortly after with his phone last pinging in the Rural de Teno park at 8.50am.
The search efforts saw friends, family, TikTok sleuths and even TV detective Mark Williams-Thomas travelling to Tenerife to help.