Latest southern Colorado news, weather and sports from FOX21 News

AIR FORCE ACADEMY, COLO. -- Two Air Force Academy Cadets made an unusual discovery during a spring break snowshoeing trip. The two found several dead cows, frozen, inside a cabin. Now the U.S. Forest Service may need to use explosives to remove them.

The cadets said they were hiking to the Conundrum Hot Springs near Aspen and had planned on staying in an old abandoned cabin for the night, but they found it was already occupied.

"We ended up running into a cabin which you're not technically supposed to camp in, but it's a great place to stay. It's a lot better than snow, as you may imagine," Cadet Cameron Harris said.

After a more than eight mile hike the two were ready to relax.

"Cameron got there first and said 'I think we're gonna have to sleep on the snow tonight man. The cabin is full of frozen cows,'" Cadet Marshall Kay said.

Kay said at first he didn't believe his friend.

"I thought he was just messing with me, but when we saw it we were pretty upset. We were pretty mad that we weren't gonna be able to sleep warm that night," Kay said.

"We did poke at them, and they were stiff as wood," Harris said.

The two spent the night camping in the snow and the following day called the U.S. Forest Service.

"We were upset nonetheless, cause we had nowhere to stay. So we went back into town and got revenge and ate a couple of big burgers.

The Forest Service said the cows were part of a herd that went missing last fall from Gunnison National Forest and may have wandered into the cabin looking for shelter.

"The cabin doesn't have a door, it's an old cabin," Steve Segin, Public Affairs Officer with the U.S. Forest Service, said.

"The cows were in that area and sought shelter in it, and then probably got snowed in and then died after that," Segin said.

Now the Forest Service has to decide what to do with the carcasses.

"The reason the cows have to be removed is you know, they are starting to defrost and we want to avoid any negative interactions between people and wildlife, particularly the mountain lions and the bears that are going to be feeding on the carcasses," Segin said.

Segin added that they have three options.

"The first is to do nothing and allow nature to take it's course. The second option is to utilize fire, burn the cabin as well as the cows. And the last option is to utilize explosives to remove the cabin as well as disperse the cow carcasses, to help speed up the decomposition process," he said.

Segin said hiking the cows out or using any kind of mechanical devices would be impossible because of the terrain.

There is no set date on when a decision will be made, but Segin said it must be done quickly, and regardless of the decision the area will have to be closed while they remove the cattle.

"Things are beginning to warm up and thaw out and, you know, public safety is our number one concern, so we want to make sure we get this problem solved as quickly as possible," Segin said.

The cadets said there were six cows in total, some of them calves.