Bavarian climber receives rucksack lost on Austrian glacier 63 years ago

Discovery on the Sulztalferner

On 16 July 2026, a mountaineer traversing the Sulztalferner glacier in the Stubai Alps of Tyrol found vintage climbing equipment exposed by melting ice at an altitude of 2,955 metres. The items recovered from the surface included an old rucksack, a guide's ice axe, a camera, and a pipe. Because the gear dated from several decades earlier, authorities initially investigated whether a fatal alpine accident had occurred at the location. Officers from the alpine police post in Neustift im Stubaital launched an inquiry to identify the owner. Inside a weathered document folder within the bag, investigators discovered handwritten notes and receipts containing a faded name. The Sulztalferner glacier, located nearly 3,000 metres above sea level, has contracted significantly in recent years due to climate change.

The 1963 crevasse accident

Police traced the documents to 86-year-old Alfred Rothfischer in the Regensburg district of Bavaria. Rothfischer confirmed that the items belonged to him and described the incident that caused their loss 63 years earlier. In August 1963, the then 23-year-old climber was crossing the Sulztalferner during a high alpine tour with two companions. Rothfischer fell into a deep crevasse, but because the three climbers were roped together, his partners arrested his fall. To ascend using Prusik loops, Rothfischer dropped his heavy backpack into the depths to shed weight, enabling him to climb out of the chasm with only light injuries.

Return of equipment to family

On 25 August 2026, alpine police officers in Neustift im Stubaital delivered the preserved backpack, camera, ice axe, and pipe to Rothfischer's son. Health limitations prevented the 86-year-old mountaineer from traveling to Tyrol to receive the equipment in person. The handover resolved an episode that the family had discussed for decades. According to police reports, Rothfischer's son remarked that without his father's survival during the 1963 accident, the family would not exist in its current form today. The recovered objects had remained preserved inside the glacial ice for more than six decades before surfacing this summer.

Glacial retreat across the Alps

The emergence of the 1963 mountaineering equipment coincides with widespread ice loss across Alpine glaciers caused by rising temperatures. A survey by geographer Wilfried Hagg from the Munich University of Applied Sciences and glaciologist Christoph Mayer from the Bavarian Academy of Sciences found that Germany's four remaining glaciers lost more than a quarter of their area between 2023 and 2025. Monitoring by the Schneefernhaus environmental research station at the Zugspitze showed that dark rock debris accumulating on the ice absorbs solar heat, accelerating melting rates across the region.

Previous Alpine ice discoveries

Accelerated glacial retreat has uncovered numerous military relics and ancient remains across the Alps in recent decades. In 1991, two German hikers discovered the 5,300-year-old mummified body of Otzi the Iceman in the Otztal Alps near the Austrian-Italian border. In 2015, melting ice on Mount Scorluzzo above the Stelvio Pass revealed a First World War wooden barracks where Italian soldiers sheltered during the White War against Austro-Hungarian forces. Over the past two decades, the bodies of dozens of soldiers have emerged from receding glaciers, many still clad in wartime uniforms.