TWELVE months after a loved one vanished without trace during a hiking holiday in some of Europe's most dangerous terrain, many would have given up hope.

But Hampshire mother Marion Moore is determined that one day she will track down son Jeff who was 37 when he went missing while hiking in the Austrian Alps.

That was exactly one year ago today and since then intensive searches by mountain rescue teams and numerous heartfelt appeals have turned up no sign of the experienced mountaineer.

Even a group of seven friends and family embarked on a five-day alpine search mission and distributed 2,000 flyers in four languages along the route that Mr Moore was taking when he disappeared. However, no trace of him has ever been found.

Despite the setbacks, determined Mrs Moore has never given up hope of finding Jeff, who lived in Portchester, near Fareham, with his partner of 12 years and fiancee Marilyn Burt and worked as an operations manager for a Gosport camping equipment firm.

Speaking from her home in Portchester, Mrs Moore said: "We just don't know. We've had no bad news so we've got to think positively.

"Until they find something, we are still none the wiser but we will not give up."

Mrs Moore, who has another son Malcolm, says the family will never stop searching.

She added: "We are doing some appeals with the national and European press and we're hoping it might spark someone's memory."

The family plans to make another appeal on Italian Crimewatch-style programme Chi L'Ha Vista which they appeared on via a webcam link three months ago.

Mr Moore disappeared during an attempt to hike to the beauty spot Franz Josef Ho.

Ms Burt reported him missing from the mountain town of Heiligenblut, near to the Grossglockner Peak - the highest peak in Austria.

There have been two unconfirmed sightings of him in the last year, one at the Venice Carnival in February and another just weeks ago in a charity shop in Somerset. The hiker features on the website www.missingpersons.org.