Long-Lost Climber's Corpse Found After 21 Years

American mountaineer found frozen in Canadian Rockies
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 31, 2010 5:01 AM CDT
Updated Aug 31, 2010 6:12 AM CDT
Long-Lost Climber's Corpse Found After 21 Years
Holland fell after reaching the summit of the treacherous Slipstream alpine climb on Snow Dome Mountain.   (?LipBomb)

Hikers in the Canadian Rockies have found the frozen body of a climber who fell to his death 21 years ago. William Holland, a 39-year-old geologist from Maine, plunged 1,000 feet from Alberta's Snow Dome Mountain when a snow outcrop collapsed beneath him. Other climbers called off the search for him after an avalanche buried the area. The body was found when hikers spotted his bright jacket amid melting ice, the BBC reports.

Holland's body was preserved by glacial ice, which moved him a half-mile from the accident site over the years. "He was basically in a deep freeze for the last 21 years," a park official says. "It's been so long. It's a phone call you never expect to receive after the first couple of years," his daughter tells the Kennebec Journal. The family plans to have the body cremated and scatter the ashes in the Canadian wilderness he loved. "That was probably where he was happiest. It would be fitting," his daughter says.
(More William Holland stories.)

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