THE bodies of a renowned mountain climber and cameraman have been found in a glacier, 16 years after they were buried in a Himalayan avalanche.

    Alex Lowe, 40, and David Bridges, 29, were swept to their death in October 1999 while a third climber, Conrad Anker, survived.

    Lowes’s widow said in a statement Friday that two climbers attempting to ascend the 8,013-meter Shishapangma in Tibet discovered the remains of two people partially melting out of a glacier.

    The climbers, David Goettler, from Germany, and Ueli Steck, from Switzerland, described the clothing and backpacks seen on the bodies to Anker, who concluded that the two were Bridges and Lowe, the statement said.

    “Alex and David vanished, were captured and frozen in time. Sixteen years of life has been lived and now they are found. We are thankful,” Jenni Lowe-Anker said.

    She married Anker, Lowe’s friend and fellow elite climber, in 2001, and he adopted their three sons, Max, Isaac, and Sam.

    The couple live in Bozeman, Montana, and run the Alex Lowe Charitable Foundation together.

    The couple were in Kathmandu, Nepal, when Goettler and Steck called him from Tibet to tell him about the remains.

    The bodies were still encased in blue ice and had begun to emerge from the glacier when Goettler and Steck spotted them.

    Anker said the discovery has brought him closure and relief.

    He told the Outside magazine that although he hasn’t seen photos of the remains, he’s convinced they are those of Lowe and Bridges.

    “They were close to each other. Blue and red North Face backpacks. Yellow Koflach boots. It was all that gear from that time period. They were pretty much the only two climbers who were there,” Anker said.

    Lowe-Anker wrote in the last paragraph of her 2008 memoir, “Forget Me Not:” “Alex will melt out of the glacier one day ... And I do not look forward to it.”

    She told the Outside magazine after the bodies were found: “I kind of never realized how quickly it would be that he’d melt out. I thought it might not be in my lifetime.”

    The couple, along with their three sons, plan to go to Tibet this summer to recover the bodies.

    They want to hold a ceremony in Nyalam, Tibet, which is the closest town.

    “It’s never something you look forward to,” Lowe-Anker told Outside. “To see the body of somebody you loved and cared about. But there is a sense that we can put him to rest, and he’s not just disappeared now.”

    They haven’t spoken to the Bridges family yet.

    Bridges, Lowe, Anker and six others were on an expedition to climb Shishapangma, the 14th-highest mountain in the world.

    The group hoped to be the first American team to ski down a 7,924-meter peak, Rock And Ice magazine wrote.

    They were scouting out routes at about 5,791 meters when they saw a slab of snow break free 1,828 meters above them.

    Bridges and Lowe ran to the left, the Outside magazine wrote, and were trapped under the snow.

    Anker ran to the right downhill was thrown away and came out with a broken rib and injuries to the head, but was still able to walk.

    (SD-Agencies)