Austrian climber gets backpack back 63 years after losing it in glacier

An Austrian mountaineer has been reunited with a backpack he abandoned deep in a glacier crevasse more than six decades ago after melting ice finally brought his belongings back to the surface.

The man, now 86, lost the rucksack during a climbing expedition in August 1963 after falling into a crevasse on the Sulztalferner glacier in Austria’s Tyrol region, CNN reported.

He survived. His backpack did not make it out with him.

Sixty-three years later, a hiker spotted the long-lost equipment on the glacier at an altitude of almost 3,000 metres, according to Austrian police.

Inside were remarkably preserved reminders of another era of Alpine climbing, including an ice axe, a camera, a whistle and a weathered folder containing documents.

When police received the backpack, officers initially had a more sombre possibility to investigate: Could the belongings be connected to a mountaineering accident from decades ago?

The documents provided the crucial clue. Despite spending more than six decades in the ice, officers were able to decipher the owner’s name and eventually trace him.

What emerged was the story of a narrow escape in the summer of 1963.

The man had been crossing the glacier with several companions, with the climbers attached to one another by rope, when he plunged into a crevasse.

His companions were able to pull him towards safety. But to make himself lighter and improve his chances of being rescued, the climber discarded his backpack, leaving his equipment behind in the crevasse.

It remained there for the next 63 years.

The mountaineer was eventually contacted after police established his identity.

Ill health prevented the 86-year-old from collecting the rediscovered possessions himself, so police handed them over through his son.

The son expressed his gratitude for the return of his father’s belongings, Tyrol police said.

The remarkable reunion was made possible by a much more troubling phenomenon. Glaciers across the Alps and elsewhere are retreating as global temperatures rise, exposing objects — and sometimes human remains — that have been trapped beneath the ice for decades or even centuries.

Research published last year estimated that, if greenhouse gas emissions remain high, the rate at which the world’s glaciers disappear could peak at as many as 4,000 a year around the middle of this century.

The Austrian backpack joins a growing collection of discoveries emerging from retreating ice.

The most famous remains Ötzi the Iceman, whose naturally mummified body was discovered by hikers in the Alps in 1991.

Ötzi had been preserved in the ice for around 5,300 years, providing scientists with an extraordinary glimpse into life in prehistoric Europe.