Missing climber preserved in ice

The frozen body of a young climber who disappeared 32 years ago has been discovered in the French Alps.

Patrice Hyvert was last seen on March 1, 1982, when he took a solitary climb in the Mont Blanc mountain range of the French-Italian border.

The 23-year-old, who was training to be a guide, did not return after bad weather set in in the afternoon.

His body lay hidden until last Thursday when two climbers found Hyvert on a glacier at an altitude of 2687m, local newspaper Dauphine Libere reports. The mountaineer still had his identity card in his wallet and all of his ski equipment was still on him.

Hyvert's 82-year-old father, Gerard, said he had given up hope of finding his son's body.

"I'm a mountain man and I would have preferred him to stay up there," he told RTL radio. "He was better on a mountain than in a coffin. He was in his element."