While the bodies of three missing hikers were spotted after snow melted over an area of Washington's Mount Rainier, reaching them was a treacherous endeavor. They were found on a glacier high up on the mountain where falling ice and rocks are common.

The missing hikers were picked up by a helicopter with an attached claw-like device Tuesday, near where their hiking party of six disappeared in May.

A training flight crew saw the bodies in avalanche debris on Aug. 7, but with the unstable ground and at an elevation of 9,500 feet on the Carbon Glacier, a recovery operation couldn't be done at the time.

Mount Rainier National Park spokeswoman Patti Wold said that the season's warm weather has led to more crevasses opening up and further ice and rock falls and a very dangerous spot on the volcano's slope.

The mechanical claw that rescuers used was borrowed from similar park rescue crews from Denali National Park in Alaska. NorthWest Helicopters based out of Olympia were able to attach the grabber to a 100-foot-long line and dropped it down to pick up the bodies without risking a mountaineering ranger.

"It's got three or four prongs that open and close," Wold said. "Those games in the grocery store where you use the claw to grab the toys -- it operates similar to that."

The group of six climbers included two guides and four other mountaineers, all of whom were experienced. They consisted of Alpine International guides Matthew Hegeman and Eitan Green, 34-year-old Erik Britton Kolb, a finance manager at American Express, vice president of Intel in Southeast Asia, Uday Marty, mountain climber John Mullally from Seattle and Mark Mahaney from St. Paul. Authorities believed that the hikers fell after going missing on a route near Liberty Ridge.

The Park Service is convinced the three bodies recovered are part of the missing group, but Wold said official word would come from the Pierce County Medical Examiner's Office. There was no sign of any other climbers after Tuesday's operation.