Grainau Mountain Rescue finds 700 kilos of trash and bones at the Höllentalferner glacier

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Seven hundred kilograms of trash and bones that a doctor believes to be human: What began as an exercise by the Grainau Mountain Rescue at the Höllentalferner beneath the Zugspitze ended with a police deployment. In the course of a cleanup action at the glacier, rescuers also got their hands on skeletal material among plastic, old ropes, and scrap.

The Grainau Mountain Rescue was out at the Höllentalferner for an exercise – and used the day to rid the glacier of trash left behind over past decades. In the end, 700 kilograms ended up in the bags. What started as a cleanup took a dramatic turn with the bone discovery.

A doctor who examined the bones estimates them to be human. That makes one thing clear: what the rescuers pulled from the ice is not just waste. As the Merkur-Zeitung reports, police are now dealing with the find – according to the paper, the authorities are investigating a possible link to missing persons cases.

What was found at the Höllentalferner

The Höllentalferner lies in the Wetterstein range below the Zugspitze and is one of the smaller glaciers in the Bavarian Alps. During the cleanup, the rescuers recovered the bones alongside the trash – bones that have now opened a case for investigators.

Whether the remains are actually human is likely, based on the doctor's initial assessment. But only a more extensive forensic medical examination will provide definitive answers. Until then, how long the skeletal material has lain in the ice is unclear.

What police are now investigating

Following the doctor's findings, police have been brought in. They are trying to identify the bones and match them against open missing persons cases from the region. How long the investigation will take is currently unclear.

For the Grainau Mountain Rescue, this means: an exercise that began as an environmental action has turned into securing and investigative work. What this means concretely for relatives or hikers in the region will only become clear once the forensic medical results are in.