86-Year-Old Austrian Reunited with Backpack Lost in Glacier Crevasse in 1963

A Remarkable Reunion After Six Decades

An 86-year-old Austrian man has been reunited with climbing equipment he was forced to abandon in a glacier crevasse more than six decades ago, after melting ice brought the long-lost belongings back to the surface.

A hiker discovered the backpack on the Sulztalferner glacier in Austria’s western Tyrol region last month, at nearly 3,000 meters (9,800 feet) above sea level, according to Austrian police. Inside was a collection of items that had been preserved in the ice for decades, including an ice axe, camera, whistle and a weathered document folder, as reported by CNN.

Police officers investigated the discovery to see if the rucksack was evidence of a long-ago mountaineering accident. They were able to make out the owner’s name among the documents found inside, leading to his identification, according to CNN. Global News reported that the name was 'barely legible' in a badly weathered document folder, and further research led to the identification of the former owner.

Investigators learned that the man had lost the equipment during a climbing trip across the glacier in August 1963. He had fallen into a crevasse while roped together with several companions, police said. The others managed to pull him to safety, but he discarded his backpack in an effort to reduce his weight, as detailed by both CNN and The Guardian.

The Return of a Family Heirloom

Sixty-three years later, the lost equipment was finally returned. The man, who has not been publicly named, was unable to collect the belongings himself because of ill health, police said, and the items were instead returned to him through his son. The return took place on August 25, according to Global News, when a mountain police officer handed the items to the man’s son.

The son told officers that the story of the lost backpack held great significance in the family, as if the man had not survived, his descendants would not have been here to collect his belongings, as reported by Global News. The man’s son expressed his gratitude at the backpack’s return, according to a statement from Tirol police cited by CNN.

The Guardian noted that the items included an ice axe, camera and a pipe dating from the 1950s or 1960s, and that the discovery was made in July.

A Window into a Vanishing Past

The return of the backpack is part of a broader pattern: as glaciers melt, they are yielding objects and remains that have been locked in ice for decades or even millennia. The Guardian reported that the accelerating retreat of European glaciers, which scientists say is primarily driven by human-caused global heating, has revealed a vast array of relics, ancient ecosystems and human remains in recent decades.

In the Tyrol region alone, researchers have found coins, weapons, diaries, lanterns, canned food, bottles, clothes, straw beds and even the remains of soldiers in uniform who were stationed there during the First World War, according to Global News. The Guardian also mentioned a 2015 discovery of a barracks where Italian troops had sheltered while fighting the Austro-Hungarian army during the White War, a battle waged across Alpine terrain during World War I, on Mount Scorluzzo. The bodies of dozens of soldiers, some still in their uniforms, have emerged from the melting ice within the past 20 years, The Guardian reported.

Perhaps the most famous example is Ötzi the Iceman, the 5,300-year-old mummified body of a hunter found in 1991 by two German hikers in the Ötztal Alps, close to Italy’s border with Austria, as reported by CNN and The Guardian. Ötzi’s body, replete with tattoos, is on display at a museum in Bolzano, The Guardian added.

The story of the returned backpack, then, is not just a personal tale of loss and recovery; it is also a glimpse into how a warming world is reshaping the landscape and revealing traces of the past that were once thought lost forever.