Skeleton unearthed beneath California peak

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The climbers were clos ing in on the top of California’s second-highest peak when they came upon the grisly discovery of what looked like a bone buried in a boulder field.

Closer inspection revealed internment camp at a fractured human Manzanar. skull. Tyler Hofer and his Hofer and a friend climbing partner moved had gone slightly off the rocks aside and discovered trail-less route as they an entire skeleton. picked their way through It appeared to have been boulders when they there long enough that stumbled upon the all that remained were shocking find. bones, a pair of leather “The average person shoes and a belt. who was hiking to

The discovery a week Williamson wouldn’t ago beneath Mount have gone the route we Williamson unearthed a went because we were a mystery: Who was the little bit lost, a little bit unfortunate hiker? How off course,” Hofer told did he or she die? Was The Associated Press. the person alone? Were “So it made sense that they ever reported injured, nobody would have dead or missing? stumbled across the

The Inyo County body.”

Sheriff’s Department Hofer phoned from doesn’t have any of the summit to report the those answers yet. But it finding and went to the retrieved the remains sheriff’s department the Wednesday in the hopes next day after hiking out of finding the identity to speak with investigat and what happened. or s.

There’s no evidence to Sgt. Nate Derr, who suggest foul play, coordinates the county’s spokeswoman Carma search and rescue team, Roper said. said bodies found in the

“This is a huge mystery mountains are typically for us,” Roper said. connected with someone

The body was discovered they know who has gone Oct. 7 near a lake missing. The opposite is in the remote rock-filled rarer: finding the remains bowl between the towering of someone who appears peaks of Mount to not have gone missing Tyndall and Williamson, or been reported as which rises to 14,374 missing. feet (4,381 meters). The They plan to use DNA behemoth of a mountain to try to identify the looms large over the r em ai ns.

Owens Valley below and Because the body was overshadows the former so decomposed, investigators World War II Japanese believe it’s possibly been there for decades.

Authorities have ruled out that it’s 1st Lt. Matthew Kraft, a Marine from Connecticut who vanished in February during a nearly 200-mile (320-kilometer) ski trek through the Sierra. Derr also doubts it’s Matthew Greene, a Pennsylvania climber last seen in the Mammoth Lakes area — nearly 70 miles (112 kilometers) north — in 2013.

Investigators have gone back through decades of reports of people missing in the Inyo National Forest and come up empty, Derr said. Neighboring Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks also don’t have reports of anyone missing in that area, he sai d.

Bodies of those who go missing in the mountains are discovered from time to time, but it can take years and even decades.

It took five years — after an exhaustive search was called off — before a trail worker discovered the body of Randy Morgenson, a Kings Canyon National Park ranger who vanished in 1996. A World War II airman whose plane had crashed near Mount Mendel on a training flight in 1942 wasn’t found until 2005 when a receding glacier gave up his body.

Hofer, a church pastor in San Diego, said it appeared to him the body was intentionally buried. The skeleton was laid out on its back with the arms crossed over the chest.

“It wasn’t in a position of distress or curled up,” Hofer said. “It was definitely a burial because it was very strategically covered with rocks.”

The death could have occurred in the days before helicopters were used to fly out bodies, Derr said. It’s possible that the person perished on the mountain and was buried by a climbing partner.

“I can’t say whether it’s intentional or not, but it’s not an area that would be prone to rockfall,”Derr said.

Although the mountain is the state’s second-highest, it’s not summited as frequently as other high Sierra peaks because it is a forbidding approach. The elevation gain from the trailhead in the high desert to the summit is the greatest of any peak in California.

It can take more than a day to hike over Shepherd Pass and then the trail ends, and climbers have to make a tedious scramble over rock fields and sand across Williamson Bowl — where the body was found — before climbing the final 2,000 feet (600 meters) up a chute that includes moments of breathtaking exposure while picking their way up a rock face.

Hofer posted about his finding on a mountaineers forum on Facebook that sparked speculation about the death, in part because Hofer described the shoes as the type worn by rock climbers.

That seemed unusual because the area is not well known for rock climbing. And, because most climbers work in pairs, it raised questions about what had happened to any partner or whether the death had been reported.

Derr said he did not think they were climbing shoes but couldn’t rule that possibility out.

Hofer said he summited the peak after his discovery and wasn’t haunted by the image.

He was more excited he might be able to let someone know about a lost loved one as he ran through the various scenarios of how the body got there.

- AP