The body of a missing French climber has finally been found -- after 32 years.
Hikers on Mont Blanc in the Alps stumbled upon the frozen remains of Patrice Hyvert last Thursday while they were scaling a range called the Mont Blanc massif, local newspaper Le Dauphiné Libéré reports.
After the climbers found the corpse, they notified mountain police who identified the body as the missing hiker.
Hyvert, an aspiring mountain guide, was last seen on March 1, 1982, when he embarked on a solo trek up the Nant Blanc face of the Aiguille Verte with plans to ski down, according to reports. He was 23 at the time. Inclement weather rolled in later that afternoon and heavy snow soon obscured the climb. On the same day, another mountaineer, Jean-Marc Boivin, was also scaling the range. He was airlifted off the mountain two days later.
For Hyvert's 82-year-old father, Gérard, the discovery of his son's frozen body confirmed what the family long suspected: Hyvert was lost to the mountain.
"I'm a mountain man, and I would have preferred him to stay up there," he told France's RTL radio this week. "He was better on a mountain than in a coffin. He was in his element."
Throughout the years, many mountain climbers have died while scaling Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in the Alps. Rescue teams are currently searching the mountain range for two missing hikers who disappeared Sunday.