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The remains of two hikers from St. Louis Park who went missing in April have been identified by Colorado authorities.

Family members said Damian McManus, 51, and his son Evan, 18, a St. Louis Park High School senior, went to Colorado's Mount Evans for a spring break hike April 2. Authorities later found their car in the parking lot near Echo Lake, a popular spot for day hikes. A week-long search didn't find any trace of the two and they were presumed dead.

Searches kept up for months, in part lead by 

a family friend in the area, who found them about 10 a.m. Thursday

. That search finally proved successful about 10 a.m. on Thursday, when a hiker found one body, then another nearby, in an area called Vance Creek.

"The terrain is extremely, extremely rough. I mean, there's downed trees and brush and rock, and as a matter of fact the gentleman I talked to yesterday said he was, probably last week or the week before, he was within 50 feet of the one body and didn't see it," said Clear Creek Co. Sheriff's Captain Bruce Snelling, who described the remains as skeletal, partial and difficult to spot.

"Literally you have got to almost walk on top of it to find it," Snelling said, adding that the identification is based on personal effects found nearby. Dental records have been turned over to the coroner to help confirm the find. It appears that the two succumbed to bad weather, and foul play is not suspected, but a fuller investigation is ongoing.

"You know, guys will go to go hiking and they'll either get separated or off the beaten path and then they'll be conditions where the snow will be waist deep, and then they're stuck," Snelling said. "And then if they're ill prepared to hunker down and stay there, and make a snow cave or take some kind of survival action, they're absolutely done."

More than 50 members of over a dozen Colorado search and rescue teams began to search extensively for the men on April 6 — on foot, on snowmobiles and from the air — after they were reported missing. The search was called off because of dangerous winter conditions in the area.

Andrea Bouzrara, a family friend and spokesperson, helped organize a last push to recover the remains of Damien and Evan, starting Tuesday. 

Four firefighters, from St. Louis Park, Edina and Eden Prairie

 volunteered to go to Colorado to help and were out looking for the McManuses through Thursday. Before the Minnesota searchers arrived, searchers spent about 5,000 combined hours looking for the men, said Bill Barwick, a spokesman for the Alpine Rescue Team.

Mount Evans is 14,250 feet high and has one of the highest paved roads in North America. The road closes at the end of summer, when weather conditions can quickly become treacherous. Friends of the McManus family believed they had only a matter of weeks left to search this year before snow returned and would have covered up any trace of the bodies again.

Snelling said about four or five people a year die under similar circumstances in Clear Creek County every year. He said authorities recovered another deceased hiker just a month before the McManuses disappeared.

"Hypothermia sets in fairly quickly," Snelling said. "You know, it gets cold at night up there, we're talking minuses. And people just pass away."

Funeral services are pending. Bouzrara, the family spokeswoman, said that relatives and friends are gathering to decide what the next steps will be and how to memorialize the pair.

Bouzrara issues the following statement on behalf of Katherine McManus: 

Disasters

Minnesota News

Twin Cities News

Tim Nelson

Author

The identification is based on personal effects found nearby, but a fuller investigation is ongoing, Snelling said. It appears that the two succumbed to bad weather, and foul play is not suspected.

St. Louis Park hikers' bodies ID'd in Colorado

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