Two people died while climbing at Mount Rainier National Park, according to the National Park Service.
Search-and-rescue crews recovered the bodies of the climbers from the Wilson Glacier area of Mount Rainier, at an elevation of about 9,600 feet, the park service said Thursday.
The Pierce County medical examiner's office identified one climber as Jiri Richter, 51. The medical examiner's office hasn't yet identified his cause of death, nor did it identify the second climber.
Park rangers began a search Saturday after they identified overdue climbing permits, and the climbers’ emergency contacts said they hadn’t been heard from since Friday. The climbers’ vehicles were found in the Paradise parking lot.
Searchers used equipment to spot the climbers, who weren’t moving, near Wilson Glacier on the southern slope of Mount Rainier, but weather conditions prevented them from using search planes or helicopters. Ground crews reached the site Tuesday.
Mount Rainier National Park requires climbers to be an adult or have a guardian's permission to apply for a permit and to have a permit to be on a glacier or above normal climbing high camps, at about 10,000 feet. Climbers must be with at least one other person unless they're specifically authorized to be solo.
The national park notes that few people try to climb Mount Rainier in the winter, as weather, snow and route conditions can change rapidly. The changing conditions make the difference between a pleasant and rewarding experience or a tragedy, the national park says on its website.
Last week, two women died in Olympic National Forest when a fir tree fell on them as they hiked to Lena Lake. Two backcountry skiers were killed Jan. 9 in an avalanche at Longs Pass in the Cascades.
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