{"id":117922,"date":"2026-08-20T12:22:20","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T12:22:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/117922\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T12:22:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T12:22:20","slug":"belgian-mountaineers-missing-for-34-years-found-on-trift-glacier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/117922\/","title":{"rendered":"Belgian Mountaineers Missing for 34 Years Found on Trift Glacier"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\"\"The bodies of the 2 missing hikers were recovered and identified after 34 years. | Image: Cantonal Police Valais\/Wallis<\/p>\n

The remains of two Belgian mountaineers who disappeared in the Swiss Alps in 1992 have been identified after retreating ice exposed their bodies on the Trift Glacier.\u00a0The discovery brings an end to a 34-year mystery surrounding Marcel Bastyns and Jos Van Deun, who vanished in the Swiss Alps in September 1992.<\/p>\n

On July 26, 2026, a hiker discovered human remains exposed by the melting Trift Glacier near the Swiss mountain town of Saas-Grund in the Valais region. A recovery operation was launched, and the remains were transferred to the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the Hospital of Valais for examination. DNA testing subsequently established that the remains belonged to the two Belgian climbers who had been missing since 1992.<\/p>\n

Bastyns and Van Deun disappeared while attempting to climb the 4,017-meter (13,179-foot) Weissmies, one of Switzerland\u2019s iconic 4,000-meter peaks. According to contemporary newspaper reports, the two men set out on September 3, 1992. The pair sought shelter in the Weismies Hut at 2,726 meters (8,944 feet) overnight and set out from there on the morning of Friday, September 4, 1992, towards the Almageller Hut. Their planned route took them over the summit of the Weissmies but they encountered extremely poor weather conditions on the way and never reached their destination.<\/p>\n

An extensive search was launched at the time but only a backpack was found while the two men remained missing.\u00a0For more than three decades, the fate of the two climbers remained unknown. That changed this summer. On July 26, a hiker discovered human remains exposed on the Trift Glacier. The discovery was reported to authorities, prompting a recovery operation.\u00a0The remains were transported for forensic examination, where DNA samples were compared with profiles provided by the men\u2019s families.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"The Trift Glacier in winter. | Image: Dominic Steinmann<\/p>\n

The comparison produced a definitive identification. In line with Swiss privacy laws, the cantonal police of Valais\/Wallis identified the men as Belgian nationals who were 39 and 41 years old when they disappeared, however, Belgian newspapers identified the men as Bastyns and Van Deun.<\/p>\n

The Valais cantonal police maintains records of missing people dating back to 1925. Many of those cases involve people who disappeared in the high mountains or in rivers and other bodies of water. The police noted that glacier retreat has increasingly resulted in the discovery of human remains belonging to people who disappeared decades earlier.<\/p>\n

For the families of Bastyns and Van Deun, the discovery finally provides an answer to a question that had remained unresolved since 1992.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The bodies of the 2 missing hikers were recovered and identified after 34 years. | Image: Cantonal Police…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117923,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[16],"tags":[50,14691,57367],"class_list":["post-117922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-alps","tag-alps","tag-climbing","tag-trift-glacier"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/117127816933327851","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}