Mummified Climbers Found on Mexico's Tallest Peak

Bodies on Pico de Orizaba could be those lost in avalanche half-century ago
By Polly Davis Doig,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 8, 2015 11:36 AM CDT
Mummified Climbers Found on Mexico's Tallest Peak
In this Feb. 28, 2015 photo, a mummified frozen body sticks out from the snow in a glacier on the Pico de Orizaba volcano, Mexico's tallest peak.   (AP Photo/Israel Mijangos Q.)

A team of climbers trekked some 17,000 feet up Mexico's Pico de Orizaba in search of one set of frozen, mummified remains only to stumble upon a second set some 400 feet away, reports the Telegraph. "It was impossible to conduct the rescue this time," says a local official; rescuers were to try again to pull the bodies off the dormant volcano, which the Yucatan Times notes is the third-tallest peak in North America at 18,491 feet above sea level. Officials aren't exactly sure who the corpses might be, notes UPI, but they're speculating that they may belong to two of three people killed in an avalanche more than 50 years ago, and that a third corpse may be nearby. Officials hope to identify the bodies through still-intact clothing on them and DNA. (A mummified monk was recently found inside a Buddha statue.)

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