Twenty two years ago, an avalanche buried American climber Bill Stampfl as he made his way up one of the highest peaks in the Andes mountains.
His family knew there was little hope of finding him alive, or even of retrieving his corpse from the thick fields of snow and the freezing ice sheets that cover the 22,000-foot tall Huascaran peak.
But in June, Stampfl’s son got a call from a stranger, who said he had come across the climber’s frozen, and mostly intact body, as he made his own ascent up Huascaran.
“It was so out of left field. We talk about my dad, we think about him all the time,” Joseph Stampfl said. “You just never think you are going to get that call.”
He then shared the news with his family.
“It’s been a shock” said Jennifer Stampfl, the climber’s daughter. “When you get that phone call that he’s been found your heart just sinks. You don’t know how exactly to feel at first.”
Jennifer Stampfl said a plaque in memory of the three friends was placed at the summit of Mount Baldy in Southern California, where the trio trained for their expeditions. She said they may return to the site with her father’s remains.
Janet Stampfl-Raymer, who was Stampfl’s wife, said that when her husband wasn’t working as a civil engineer, he loved to be a mountaineer.
“He was a kind man. He was humble. He loved God, and he loved the mountains,” she said.
“We all just dearly loved my husband. He was one of a kind,” she said. “We’re very grateful we can
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