LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) – Last month a Henderson man was hiking one of the tallest mountains in the world when his adventure took an unexpected turn. His hiking team noticed a dark shape in the snow-covered glacial field.
“As we got closer that object began to take shape, we could see it was a climber,” said Henderson native Ryan Cooper. “As we got closer we could tell the climber had been there for quite some time.”
That hiker’s name is William Stampfl and he had been in that spot frozen in time for 22 years.
“I noticed right off the bat this climber had a wedding ring on, you could see his ring, “ Cooper continued. “It hit me… this guy had a family, at least a wife and they were expecting him home and he never came home.”
The hiker’s body was fully intact. He still had his boots on and a fanny pack with a driver’s license. Cooper immediately got to work trying to find his family. After a few days he had tracked down the children of William Strampfl and called them with the news.
“Twenty-two years later you’re getting a phone call. They already accepted the fact he was going to be part of the mountain, to get that phone call is quite a shock,” Cooper said.
“I’m just so glad that it was Ryan,” said Jennifer Stampfl, “I truly believe there is a higher power and I believe he believes that as well. That put him in that spot and that time to find my dad.”
That spot is Huascaran, the highest peak in the Peruvian Andes. It’s a gigantic mountain that only the bravest even dare climb. Huascaran beckoned Bill two decades ago and Cooper just last month.
Jennifer Stampfl describes the call they got one day in 2002 with devastating news.
“They got a call from the Peruvian embassy that there was an avalanche and that was route the Americans had taken.”
Bill and his hiking party were buried in snow. After a week-long search came up missing the hikers were presumed dead.
Fast forward over twenty years, it’s Cooper and his brother hiking up the same mountain. It was on the way down the team noticed something odd. In a sea of whiteness… a dark object stood out. The missing body of William Stampfl.
“We saw he was from Chino, California, he was American,” said Cooper. “So me and my brother realized we were the ones responsible for finding his family.”
After contacting the Stampfl family, Ryan suddenly had a new mission. Get Bill home. Peruvian rescue teams carried him down the mountain. William’s family plans on cremating his remains and are planning a special hike to spread the ashes at one of his favorite spots, the top of Mount Baldy.
Cooper is grateful he is giving the Stampfl family peace of mind and closure and feels a kinship with the man who shared this mountain twenty-two years ago.
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