Wintry mix spreads across Minnesota

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The remains of two people were found Thursday by hikers near Mount Evans, where a father and son from Minnesota have been missing since April.

Firefighters head to Colorado to search for missing hikers


There was no immediate identification on the two bodies. The Clear Creek County Sheriff's Office said the remains were found Thursday morning and were being recovered by rescue teams.

The remains will be turned over to the county coroner's office for identification.

There was no immediate word whether the bodies matched descriptions of a father and son from St. Louis Park, Minnesota -- 51-year-old Damian McManus and 18-year-old Evan McManus. The two went missing in April on a Colorado hiking trip.

Four Minneapolis-area firefighters were searching Thursday for the pair. Authorities didn't say whether the firefighters were the ones who discovered the bodies.

More than 50 members of over a dozen Colorado search and rescue teams searched extensively for the men -- on foot, on snowmobiles and from the air -- after they were reported missing.

They were last heard from April 2 when one of them told a friend they were going to scale a peak. They were reported missing on April 6, when the search began.

Their car was found at the Echo Lake Campground near the base of the mountain but it's not known which trail they took, said Bill Barwick, a spokesman for the Alpine Rescue Team. Heavy snow fell after they disappeared, erasing any footprints left before the storm, he said.

"We don't know where they went," Barwick said.

Searchers worked in up to 3 feet of snow and the threat of avalanches initially prevented searchers from going into some areas.

The initial search lasted for four days and crews later returned to the area for smaller searches. Before the Minnesota searchers arrived, searchers spent about 5,000 combined hours looking for the men, Barwick said.

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.

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Damian McManus and his 18-year-old son Evan, of St. Louis Park, disappeared on a spring break hiking trip near Mt. Evans three months ago.

Two bodies found where missing Minnesota hikers disappeared

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