INDEPENDENCE, Calif. (AP) — Two climbers reported missing this week on California’s towering Mount Whitney have been found dead, officials said Thursday.
A friend who accompanied the climbers called authorities Tuesday evening after they did not arrive at their campsite as expected, the Inyo County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.
The friend said the two men planned to ski or snowboard from “the notch,” a flat area where climbers often stop to rest, to their camp at Upper Boy Scout Lake.
A helicopter crew and teams on the trails launched a search.
“Tragically, both hikers were later discovered deceased,” the sheriff’s statement said. Their identities were not immediately released.
Because the bodies were in neighboring Tulare County, the case is being handled by that county’s sheriff-coroner’s office.
Located in the central Sierra Nevada, with a summit rising to 14,500 feet (4,420 meters), Mount Whitney is the highest point in the United States outside of Alaska.
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