An 86-year-old German mountaineer has been reunited with the backpack he lost in a crevasse on Austria’s Sulztalferner glacier in 1963. Melting ice in Tyrol brought the bag and its contents back to the surface.
DR reports that the police in the Austrian state of Tyrol announced the reunion in a press release. The mountaineer fell into the crevasse in 1963 while crossing the glacier with two friends. Because the group had secured each other with a climbing rope, he managed to pull himself back up.
To make himself lighter during the escape, he let his backpack drop into the depths of the glacier. According to DR, the bag contained his camera, a whistle, an ice axe and a document folder. Some of the items were identified as dating from the 1950s or 1960s.
The Austrian newspaper Kronen Zeitung reports that the backpack was found by a mountain guide at an altitude of 2,950 meters on the melting glacier. The Guardian writes that the find was made in July 2026 at roughly 2,955 meters, and that it was a hiker who came across the bag. The same outlet dates the original fall to August 1963.
Police opened an investigation
When the backpack was handed in, officers opened an investigation, because they did not know whether the owner was alive or dead. Examining the contents, they concluded that the objects came from the 1950s or 1960s. They also found a faint name in one of the documents, which put them on the trail of the owner.
CNN reports that Austrian police identified the owner from the damaged documents inside the bag. The broadcaster also notes that the contents included the ice axe, the camera, the whistle and the document folder. Some of those items were dated by police to the 1950s or 1960s.
For health reasons, the 86-year-old could not collect his belongings himself from the police in Neustift in Tyrol. He instead sent his son, who thanked both the police and the mountain guide for their efforts. CNN adds that the man was too ill to travel to the handover in person.
Per DR, the son said the story of his father’s fall and the lost backpack holds a special place in the family. Without his father’s survival on the glacier, he noted, there would be no family at all.
The Sulztalferner glacier lies in the Stubai Alps in Tyrol. Both Kronen Zeitung and The Guardian describe the ice there as melting, which is how the 63-year-old backpack resurfaced at close to 3,000 meters. Police in Tyrol handled the case from their station in Neustift.
