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By Alia Shoaib
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The body of an American mountain climber who disappeared 22 years ago has been found after ice melted to reveal his mummified remains.
William Stampfl, then 59, vanished with his group in an avalanche in 2002 while attempting to climb the 22,000 foot-high Huascarán mountain in Peru.
Peruvian police said on Monday that a thaw on the Cordillera Blanca range of the Andes, exposed the missing climber's corpse, according to news agency Agence France-Presse.
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Stampfl was identified by his passport, which was found among his possessions, police said. Police also released images which showed that the ice had preserved his body along with his clothes, harness and boots, the AFP reported.
One image published by the news agency shows police officers surrounding Stampfl's frozen body, and another shows rescuers transporting his body. Newsweek has reached out to Peru's national police department for more information via email.
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Stampfl was reported missing in the Ancash region, 400 km north of Lima in June 2002 after his climbing expedition went awry.
The mountain ranges of Peru, including the one that Stampfl was attempting to scale all those years ago, are popular among climbers, but they can often be perilous.
In May, an Israeli hiker who went missing in the Huayhuash mountain range was found dead, nearly a month after he went missing.
And in June, an Italian mountaineer was found dead in Peru after he fell while trying to scale another peak in the Andes.
Like many parts of the world, Peru has been experiencing high rates of ice melt in recent years. This is primarily caused by global temperatures increasing due to climate change.
Peruvian scientists told The Associated Presslast year that the South American country has lost more than half its glacier surface in just over half a century.
Stampfl is not the only deceased climber to have gone missing, only to be found later among the snowy peaks due to ice melt.
A June expedition by a team of Nepalese military personnel and climbers recovered at least five frozen bodies exposed by melting ice on Mount Everest.
"Because of the effects of global warming, (the bodies and trash) are becoming more visible as the snow cover thins," Aditya Karki, a major in Nepal's army who led the team, told AFP.
Last year, a deceased German mountaineer was also discovered among the melting ice just off the Matterhorn mountain in the Alps, after having been missing for 36 years.
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