British Climbers Die In Sierra Nevada, Andalucía

[Shadow Leader]

I was quite surprised to hear of this, the Sierra Nevada region isn't renowned for such treacherous weather that it kills people. Sierra Nevada is only around 3 hours away from me on the outskirts of Granada and I have been up there often on skiiing trips - in fact I'm planning to go in the weeks after Cheltenham. It's a beautiful part of the world with stunning scenery. I know there was bad weather up there last week as I was speaking to a friend who was up there last week - he wasn't happy that his couple of days snowboarding ended up as a whiteout - they shut the resort - and he was stuck in a 5 and a half hour traffic jam trying to get off the mountain! Ironically, the last time I went to Sierra Nevada with Richard we had to come home a day early as they shut the resort due to high winds and blizzards.

Taken from the BBC website

UK climbers found dead in Spain
Three British climbers have been found dead in Spain's Sierra Nevada mountains after becoming stranded in bad weather.

The bodies were found the day after a fourth member of the party - the son of one of the victims - managed to reach a village to alert the authorities.

The men, so far not identified, are thought to have suffered hypothermia after a snowstorm, police said.

A Spanish Civil Guard spokesman added that they had not been equipped with proper clothing and footwear.

A spokesman for the UK Foreign Office said the group were thought to have started the trek in the southern region of Andalucia on Thursday or Friday.

The alarm was raised on Sunday afternoon when the son of one of the men turned up in the village of Capileira to seek help.

"The weather conditions became so treacherous that they made a shelter for the night," the Foreign Office spokesman said.

"It seems one of them made it down and alerted the search and rescue teams."

A mountain rescue team from Spain's Civil Guard aided by a helicopter had to call off its search at nightfall on Sunday due to bad weather.

The team on Monday found the bodies in a hole in the snow on the south side of the 11,414ft-tall Mulhacen, mainland Spain's highest peak.

The bodies were taken to a nearby town for post-mortem examination, the Civil Guard spokesman said.

"We are in the process of informing next of kin," the Foreign Office spokesman said.

The Sierra Nevada, which has some of the highest mountains in Europe, is a year-round draw for hikers, climbers and skiers.