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Human Remains Found Frozen in a Glacier Atop Mexico's Tallest Mountain Could Belong to Explorers Missing for 60 Years
Picture taken from Tlatichuca, state of Puebla, Mexico, on March 13, 2015 of the Pico de Orizaba mountain, where four climbers died in 1959. A team of Mexican climbers searching for a frozen body on the country's highest mountain -- and North America's third -- stumbled onto a second mummified cadaver during their expedition on March 5. The 12 local civil protection mountaineers had embarked on their mission after climbers reported seeing a frozen skull 310 metres (1,000 feet) from the peak of the Pico de Orizaba. The second body was found 150 metres away, and it was also frozen and mummified, said Juan Navarro, mayor of the town of Chalchicomula de Sesma, near the mountain. AFP PHOTO/RONALDO SCHEMIDT (Photo credit should read RONALDO SCHEMIDT/AFP/Getty Images)

Human Remains Found Frozen in a Glacier Atop Mexico's Tallest Mountain Could Belong to Explorers Missing for 60 Years

“They are practically planted in concrete."

Mexican climbers have reported finding frozen mummies where a glacier once stood atop Mexico's tallest peak.

The remains are believed to be two of three explorers who went missing in a 1959 avalanche and were discovered about 3,200 feet from Pico de Orizaba, Mexico's tallest mountain and North America's third-tallest mountain, the United Kingdom's Express reported.

Picture taken from Tlatichuca, state of Puebla, Mexico, on March 13, 2015 of the Pico de Orizaba mountain, where four climbers died in 1959. (RONALDO SCHEMIDT/AFP/Getty Images)

The bodies were found poking out of what was once a glacier more than 17,000 feet above the ground.

Climbers recently found only a head and a hand but they later determined the body parts were those of two different people. The hand appeared to be clutching the other individual.

Three people died in the 1959 incident and three others survived.

Mayor Juan Navarro of the nearby town of Chalchicomula de Sesma said the bodies still had some skin, tissue and clothing on them. Navarro said officials will eventually recover the bodies but that recent weather, combined with the steep slope of the mountain, has made that difficult.

“They are practically planted in concrete,” Navarro said.

Luis Espinoza, 78, was one of the three who survived the 1959 avalanche, and said he believes the bodies are two of the three explorers he was with nearly 60 years ago.

(H/T: Quartz)

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Jon Street

Jon Street

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