ROME — On Wednesday, rescue teams discovered the remains of a British hiker who had been missing in the Italian Alps, while the search for his companion was halted due to severe weather conditions.
The two seasoned hikers, Aziz Ziriat, 36, and Sam Harris, 35, embarked on a New Year’s Day journey in the Adamello mountain range on January 1. The Alpine rescue service was alerted to their absence on January 6 when the men missed their scheduled return flight.
After encountering two days of fog, snowfall, and avalanche warnings that complicated the search efforts, rescuers navigated to the last known position of the hikers on Wednesday using data from their mobile phones. They located Harris’s body buried beneath the snow at the base of a rockfall on the southern face of Carè Alto. It is suspected he may have fallen from a higher area.
In addition to the discovery of Harris, rescuers recovered the hikers’ backpacks and some other hiking gear. Reports from British media indicated that relatives and partners of the two men described them as knowledgeable trekkers who intended to hike between various mountain huts. The families revealed that they had last been in touch with the hikers on January 1 and were not initially alarmed when there was no communication in the days that followed.
Joe Stone, a university friend of Ziriat, stated, “They are seasoned hikers and they usually go a few times each year. It wasn’t odd for them to lose signal because they enjoy being off the grid. However, we became worried when they failed to board their flight on January 6.”
On Tuesday, a helicopter conducted an aerial survey of the area, but hurried back due to poor visibility and thick fog, leading to the suspension of the search operations. Ground teams from the fire rescue service also couldn’t proceed because of significant avalanche hazards.
As bad weather moved in again on Wednesday afternoon following the recovery of Harris, the effort to find Ziriat was again paused. Rescuers communicated that they would re-initiate their search when conditions improved.
The Adamello mountain range, located across Italy’s Lombardy and Trentino-Alto Adige regions, boasts its highest summit, Mount Adamello, rising to 3,539 meters (11,611 feet).
