Bodies of 2 missing Japanese alpinists found on Mt. McKinley

LOS ANGELES, June 6 Kyodo -
The bodies of two Japanese alpinists who went missing more than a year ago
while attempting to scale North America's highest peak Mt. McKinley in Alaska
have been found near the mountain's summit, the U.S. National Park Service said
Friday.
The two are Tatsuro Yamada from Saitama Prefecture and Yuto Inoue from Tokyo,
according to the Consular Office of Japan in Anchorage, which confirmed the
park service's announcement.
The consulate office added the U.S. authorities have said it is difficult to
collect the bodies because they are on a steep slope near the peak.
High-resolution photos of the mountain taken in May during a search for another
climber showed the bodies of two unidentified people, the park authority said.
A park service helicopter determined that the bodies, located at an altitude of
around 6,000 meters on the 6,194-meter mountain, belonged to the two Japanese
based on clothing and rope color, it said.
The two men headed toward Mt. McKinley in late April and early May in 2008 and
were scheduled to return late May that year, according to the Japanese consular
office. Yamada was 27 and Inoue was 24 when they went missing.
==Kyodo