Plot

Mircea, a retired intelligence officer, finds out that his son from has gone missing in the mountains. After days of searches, Mircea put his own rescue team together, leading to altercation with the local squad.

Mircea (Adrian Titieni), an intelligence officer, receives a phone call from the local police, who informs him that his son Cosmin and his girlfriend Daniela (Stefania Circu) have gone missing in the Bucegi mountains. Daniela had made an emergency call reporting that she and Cosmin were lost on the mountain.

Their last sighting was when they were heading to the mountains via a closed-off trail during the winter. Mircea is married to Alina (Judith State), who is pregnant. His ex-wife is Paula (Elena Purea), and Cosmin used to live with her. Laurentiu (Virgil Aioanei) is Mircea's assistant at the intelligence services. Paula tells Mircea that she has not spoken to Cosmin for 2 days.

The mountaineering rescue staff is led by Cristian Nistor (Valeriu Andriuta). Cristian says that his team was searching for the missing couple around the location of a large boulder, mentioned in Daniela's emergency call. Cristian reckons the location to be a place called Chimney's end. His men got there after an hour but could not find anyone. The Cristian sent his men to another trail called Jepii Mari just in case the couple got the trail mixed up.

Cristian won't allow Mircea to go up the mountain either, saying that the trail is closed. The mountain rescue office is right at the beginning of the trail as it enters the mountain slope. There is no way that Mircea can enter the mountain without the permission of the rescue office. When Mirdea tries to enter the trail himself, Cristian calls the cops and says that it is his job to protect all lives, by force if necessary. Cristian argues that the trail is steep, Mircea is not properly equipped, there is a blizzard coming and it will be dark within 2 hours.

Mircea meets Daniela's parents Doru (Radu Botar) & Valentina (Petronela Grigorescu) back at the hotel. Cristian sends his own team up during the night and they find a trail of 2 people leading to a cabin in the woods. But it turns out to be someone else entirely. Paula also arrives during the night. They find that Cosmin never checked out of his room at the hotel and stay in the same room. Mircea had cheated on Paula, which is why they separated in the first place.

The next morning, Mircea forces his way to the mountain by coat-tailing with a rescue team none-the-less. Mircea is old and unfit and slows the entire rescue team down. Mircea has to return to base as he simply cannot climb up to the area where Cosmin was presumed to be lost. After 4 days, the weather is becoming worse, with threat of avalanches and peak winter is also approaching. Cristian calls off the search as he believes that the chances of survival are too low now.

Mircea seeks help from the intelligence services & brings in his own team (led by Filip (Tudor Smoleanu)) for the rescue operation. Finally, they analyze phone chatter from his son's phone to the emergency services, where the girlfriend is begging for help as they have lost their way on the trail. They can see in the middle of the white snow a giant boulder that the man on the other end of the line told her would be used as the marker. Then, the phone dies.

The intelligence team uses sophisticated cell phone equipment to try and triangulate the location of Cosmin or Daniela's mobiles, but there is no signal from either of their phones and they are untraceable. They scan the entire mountain for heat signatures. Doru can't understand why Mircea didn't bring in his team on the very first day and why did he continue to rely on mountain rescue for over 4 days. Filip sends up his teams on the mountain and they go through every centimeter of snow on all the areas where the lost duo could be.

A woman approaches Mircea and begs him to use the triangulation equipment to help her find her own daughter, who is lost on the mountain. Mircea is furious with Cristian for letting these secrets out to the general public. But Cristian says that there is still a chance to rescue the missing girl (meaning there is no chance for Cosmin and Daniela). Alina forces Mircea to relent and the girl is successfully rescued.

The intelligence services triangulate an area based on the location of the phone of Daniela. The area is packed with snow, several feet deep due to an avalanche. The search location is narrowed down to an area of 27 square meters. They could be buried 10 m deep. Mircea knows that Cosmin is dead and is determined to retrieve his body.

The days pass, and the snow piles up meter after meter. The rescue team and the team hired by Mircea call off the rescue operation after answering his desperate, disillusioned orders for search. The volunteers, later hired, leave too, along with the missing girl's family. But nothing stops Mircea from "digging" further while his ex-wife sobs at the church. Filip wants to wait till spring to dig the bodies out, but Mircea forces them to continue in the winter. Filip's team get stuck by an avalanche while approaching their digging site. Many agents are injured (one agent broke his spine). The next day Filip decides to pull his team back.

Mircea decides to hire his own team to dig the body. For money he mortgages his house with Alina. This upsets her as this house was supposed to be her future with Mircea. Even after everyone deserts him (including Daniela's parents) with his disillusionment, he continues to dig for months. One day, a rescue team member notices him waiting in line for the rope-way to go uphill for the umpteenth time and decides to help him yet again.

As the four men begin their digging, they receive a call requesting help for another casualty. The rescuers are off duty, but Mircea insists they go help the man who has a much better chance of survival than his missing son. Mircea's team rescues the tourist successfully. Mircea continues to dig for his son.