Copyright 2014 by Clark Wilkins

INTRODUCTION The Dyatlov Pass incident which claimed the lives of nine cross countryskiers is one of history’s greatest mysteries. Offered solutions today rangeanywhere from abominable snowmen, to UFO’s, to secret Soviet militarytests, to even such scientific explanations as “paradoxical undressing”and the“ Kármán vortex street” . Everyone takes their turn at offering a solution andeveryone takes their turn at being wrong. The only thing they all agree onwas the night of February 2, 1959, was a night of absolute terror for nineunfortunate souls. This is a scary story. Indeed! When the story first cameout in February, 2008, it was believed to be an internet hoax.It began in 1959 when a 23 year old Russian studentof Ural’s PolytechnicInstitute , Igor Dyatlov, took his girlfriend, Zinaida Kolmogorova, on a crosscountry skiing trip. At that time such tourist travel was classified as a “sport”requiring both government permission and that the participants be rated intheir outdoor skills. To obtain permission (and to get the Communist Party topay the cost), Dyatlov submitted the route plans of a previous student groupthat had received approval but then never made the trip. He presented hisplanned 217 mile circumnavigation of Otorten Mountain to the Party as a“level 3” (most difficult) sporting event. To help get approval for it he addedit was intended to commemorate the 21st Congress of the Communist Party ofthe Soviet Union as well as to serve as a training exercise for them to make afuture similar expedition to the more difficult and treacherous Arctic regions. It was organized as a university trip, nine of the ten expedition membersbeing Polytechnic students at Sverdlovsk.The Otorten region was a very remote, lightly forested area located in thenorthern Urals with an average January temperature of zero degreesFahrenheit. There were no roads; just deer trails and rivers to follow. It wasinhabited only by a few local natives called Mansi who had given MountOtorten its name (Which, in their tongue, means “Don’t go there.”). It wasalso the site of a nearby abandoned “ghost town” of empty houses that wereonce homes to Russian gold miners until the gold played out. Since 1937 it

had since been used to house a Gulag prison camp at Ivdel and was also nowbeing used by the military Air Force for practicing night bombing . The1954 map of the hills in the area were identified not by name but by theirelevations in meters. However Hill 1079 (today known as Hill 1096.7) wasknown then by the local Mansi as Kholat-Syakhylor “Mountain of Death”, sonamed for nine Mansi who mysteriously died on it four years before.The students were all level 2 hikers, a skill rating established in 1949, and thecompletion of the trip would make them all “level 3” or the highest possibleexperience level. This would have qualified them all as instructors. Therequirements to earn a level 3 rating were to cover a minimum of 186 miles, athird of which had to be challenging terrain. It must be done over at least 16days, 8 of which had to be spent in uninhabited regions, and spend at least 6nights in a tent. Towards achieving that end at least one of the group hadbeen in the region the year before and another member was a professional skiinstructor. All were trained in ski rescue, to use a map and a compass, andhow to build a fire from wet wood and keep it lit in snow. Thus theypossessed the necessary skills to survive the trip which included yetadditional training before leaving by a professional team advisor.All were experienced outdoor enthusiasts. Igor Dyatlov had led a previoussummer excursion into the Caucuses in 1957 and Zinaida had been with himthen. He had made the group’s twelve man tent three years before by sewingtwo tents together and then adding an internal wood stove of his own design. Alexander Kolevatov had rafted the Sayan in southern Siberia in the summerof 1958 (apparently with Igor) and was the only person on that trip to havethe foresight to tie his pack to his raft when it overturned. 38 year oldSemyon “Alexander” Zolotarev was not only a professional ski instructor buthad survived five Russian winters in the Soviet Army on the western frontduring World War II, something only 3% of the men in his unit could claim. Lyudmila Dubininia knew the area well having relatives there. They wereall, except for Zolotarev, between the ages of 20-24, physically fit, and hadall agreed to quit smoking for the trip. It was said of Igor Dyatlov that the others had to earn the honor to join hisgroup and they do all appear to be qualified as “above average” though nonewere “level 3” hikers for a “level 3” trip. Exactly why there were no level 3hikers present on a level 3 trip is not known. There is no evidence though

that they were unprepared. The group’s hiking advisor, YevgenyMaslennikov, had provided them with a standardized clothing design knownas the “layered” technique. The standard attire began with pants, a shortsleeved shirt, and a pair of cotton socks. This was followed by a long sleevedshirt, ski pants, and wool socks followed by a sweater. The extra outergarment could be either a belted ski jacket (with a hood and wool skull cap)used while actively skiing or a fur coat and fur hat used when less physicallyactive or in extreme cold. Footwear was based around valenkis, a felt, woollined boot which could be covered by galoshes to keep them dry.Igor Dyatlov appears to have had tremendous organization skills and this maybe how he managed to get approval for his group of “level 2” hikers to makea trip beyond their skill level. He was also an aggressive leader. Igor wasdescribed as “totalitarian” who “decided everything” with “indisputableauthority” (Even Zina called him “some Napoleon”.). Even when outvotedhe would take over the group’s decision as if it were his own and decide howthe new plan would be implemented.His commanding personality would likely play a role in the events to followas there can be no doubt but that he was giving the orders. By educationdegree he was a radio expert and had previously designed and built radiotransmitters for use between rafts on his previous 1958 trip. They would notbe included in this trip as being too heavy to bring along.

Igor Dyatlov

On January 23, 1959, eight men and two women boarded a train and leftSverdlovsk for their planned ski trip around Otorten Mountain. The intentionwas to return by February 12 in time for the March school semester. Inembarking they left on what was to become one of the most terrifying storiesof modern times. It ended in a tragedy so ghastly as to be investigated byboth the Soviet military and the Soviet internal police (MVP) with even acopy forwarded to Nikita Khrushchev. In spite of their training andexperience it ended in a nightmare. Even with several cameras to photographthe trip and keeping a team diary as well as their own individual diaries todocument the trip, the nearly 50 onsite investigators who examined theirdeaths afterwards failed to agree on what killed them and to this day itremains a shocking story. The investigation results were subsequently filed away and all further touristtravel over their route banned for the next three years. So horrifying was thetale that, when a Russian author tried to write the story, government censorsmade him write it such that eight of the nine participants survived in order tocreate a “happy” ending.What makes the “Dyatlov Pass incident”, as it would later become to beknown, so fascinating a tale is that there is absolutely no doubt it actuallyoccurred and that these people knew a night of sheer terror in a space of justsix hours. The proof of this exists not only in the plethora of photographstaken by them but also in the conclusion of the Soviet military whichinvestigated the incident and which could only attribute their deaths to “acompelling unknown force”.These young people would be found; some stripped of their clothes, otherswith their eyes missing, and several with their bodies so smashed as tosuggest they had been crushed or caught in a bomb blast. In minus 20 degreeFahrenheit temperatures, they would flee their tent on top of a snow coveredpass in the middle of the night in only their socks and then die terrible deathsscattered outside all over the landscape.The reader is about to know not only the horror of that night but also theunknown force that compelled it to happen.

January 23, 1959Nine Days to Live

They were on train car # 531 and about to depart Sverdlovsk that night andwith all of them eagerly bound for a cross country skiing adventure. Theynumbered ten; eight men and two women. They all had long formal Russiannames but none actually used them. Chief amongst them was their groupleader, Igor Dyatlov, known simply as Igor, who just celebrated his 23rd

birthday ten days before. There was his “wanna be” girlfriend, Zinaida Kolmogorova, a pretty younggirl who had also had her 22nd birthday eleven days ago. Known as Zina bythe others (but who called herself “Zoya”), she was also a Radio major likeIgor and had done at least two previous organized hikes before.

Zinaida Kolmogorova

Then there was 20 year old Lyudmila Dubininia, simply known as Luda, who

had her eye on Yuri Yudin (As, apparently, did Zina.). She was a third yearEngineering and Economics major. Familiar with the area through herrelatives, Luda had climbed the Eastern Sayan Mountains in 1957. Sheseemed to be the most aware of the danger as she would take the greatest carenot only for herself but of the others.

Lyudmila Dubininia

Last to board the train was 24 year old Alexander Sergeievich Kolevatov,known as “Slave Khalisov” or simply “Sashi” to the others.

Alexander Kolevatov

Kolevatov had initially graduated from a Sverdlovsk college majoring inmetallurgy of non-ferrous metals in order to obtain a job in Moscowdeveloping nuclear materials. Since then though he had returned toPolytechnic for a degree in physics. The others didn’t say much about him intheir diaries, suggesting he was quiet, but evidently he was one of thebrightest members of the team along with Igor.23 year old Rustem Slobodin, a student of mechanical engineering, had alsojust celebrated his birthday twelve days ago and was known as “Rustik”. Hewas early on confused with Yuri Krivonschenko by the others over playingthe mandolin, suggesting he and Krivonschenko were either new to the groupor both could play it (It was actually Rustik’s.). They were both to becomequite popular with the others but, near the end, Rustik questioned Igor’sleadership in a situation that may have led to violence.

Rustik Slobodin

Yuri Krivonischenko, a nuclear engineer of construction and hydraulics in1957, was called “Georgy” by the others, there being two other Yuri’s in thegroup, or “Krivoy” or just plain “Kri”. His 24th birthday was just fifteendays away. He would not live to see it.

Yuri Krivonischenko

And there was Yuri Doroshenko, who would have his 21st birthday in sixdays with the group celebrating it with him. He was a former boyfriend ofZina’s and a student of Power Economics.

Yuri Doroshenko

There was also 23 year old Nicolai Thibeaux-Brignolles, whose last namewas actually French. Since no one could pronounce it, he called himself“Nick Thibault” but was simply known as “Nick”. He was a CivilEngineering major:

Nicolai Thibeaux-Brignolles

His father, a French communist, had been executed by Stalin and as a resultNick was born in a concentration camp for political prisoners set aside for“revisionist” education. Apparently it worked for he later successfully joinedthe Communist Party. He promised his mother this would be his last hike, apromise he would keep.Next to last was 37 year old (and soon to be 38 year old) Semyon Zolotarev,known to all as “Alex” (perhaps his middle name).

Semyon Zolotarev

Although a ski instructor and not a student, Zolotarev is said to have spokenthree different languages in addition to Russian. Most of what is known abouthim though comes from his military service. A survivor of five years on theRussian Front and a Cossack, he joined the Communist Party after the warand had once considered a military career as an engineer. A four timenational war hero, he would eventually take over the leadership of the groupat the height of the crisis in a desperate battle for survival. He did not knowit then but he would be spending the night of his upcoming 38th birthdaydying in the most excruciating agony imaginable.And, finally, there was 22 year old Yuri Yudin. One of only three membersto be called by his actual name, he is described as an economics student inone source and a student of geology in another. He was the only member ofthe group to survive.

Yuri Yudin

For now, they began their trip in high spirits and were going through theirpacks under the direction of “Zavchov” (Alek Zolotarev), their head ofprovision distribution. Zina referred to the sorting as an “artistic mess”. Kriwanted to know if it was okay to play the mandolin on the train and was told,of course, it was. It’s not clear though if he was asking if he could play it or

if Rustik could play it or if their names were confused with each other’s inthe diary recording this. Alek quickly found Zina had forgotten her felt bootsand no one had remembered salt or the spring balance. Igor and Doroshenkowere not participating in the pack inspection and were elsewhere (Igor waslikely hiding a flask of drinking alcohol in his pack.). Yuri Yudin hadbrought their community knife to the station but where was it now? Evidently, Slobodin had it. Luda busied herself by counting up their travelmoney. As the train pulled out and headed north, Kri (or more likely Rustik) playedhis mandolin and they sang songs and learned new songs. They stayed upuntil 3:00 AM.Zina made the following prophetic diary notes before falling asleep:“I wonder what awaits us for this trip? What will be new? Everyone issleeping and Ural taiga (author’s note: the world’s largest northern mostforest frontier) is spread in all directions.”Little did she realize just what “new horror” awaited them and that millionswould read her words and follow her final hours.

JANUARY 24, 1959; 7:00 AM

Eight Days to Live Today they arrived at the town of Serov. They were not admitted into thetrain station there even though they had done nothing wrong. A suspiciouspolice officer soon arrested Kri for singing, citing him for disturbing thepeace. While waiting outside the station they met another tourist expeditionalso headed into the Urals, a hunting party under a student named Blinov. They would travel together for the next part of the trip. Blinov wouldeventually become part of the search party to find them.At 6:30 PM they left Serov on a train bound for Ivdel, 211 miles north ofwhere they had originally started, and home of the Ivdel LAG prison camp.

JANUARY 25, 1959Seven Days to Live

They arrived today in Ivdel where, as Communist Party members, they wereexpected to speak to the local school students. Before doing so, theydistributed their equipment and practiced training (likely in setting up theircamp tent and stove). At noon, between class shifts, they gave their talk tothe students. Alek Zolotarev talked about the benefits of tourism. Tourismwas actually totally unknown to the students of Ivdel as it was available onlyto Communist Party members. They were instead far more fascinated byZina, a very attractive woman, and she quickly became the center of attentionand their questions for the next two hours. The entire school followed themto the train station, begging Zina to stay with them. At the train station they were accused of pick pocketing a drunk and arrested. While waiting to be released, they debated the effect Zina had on the studentswhich led to their talking about love. They sang songs. Luda was describedas “under the seat”, probably a reference to a police interrogation as she waslocal to the area and could answer their questions. They were given garlicbread but no water.They were eventually returned to the train station and took a tram furthernorth into Ivdel proper, getting off at midnight and renting a hotel room withfour beds. They slept two to a bed but with Sasha and Kri sleeping on thefloor. They took turns staying up all night watching their gear. They plannedto catch a bus north to Vizhai the following morning.

JANUARY 26, 1959Six Days to Live

They woke up at 9:00 AM. The outside temperature was -17 Celsius (1degree Fahrenheit). They ate lunch in the dining room having goulash andtea. When they complained the tea was cool, Igor told them to “drink itoutside on the street and it will be hot”.At 1:30 they got in the back of a GAZ-63 truck bound for Village 41 and“froze” in the back.

While traveling, they sang songs and discussed various topics, including love(Zina), friendship, and a cure for cancer. The truck would occasionally stop

to allow them to relieve themselves, boys to the right and women to the left.

At one stop, Kolevatov got left behind after sneaking off from the others tosmoke his antique pipe. He had to run to catch up with the truck.When they arrived at the 41st settlement (Vizhai) at 2:00 PM, they gaveanother Communist Party lecture to the workers there and then cooked theirown lunch. Half the group watched a movie while “Rustik” played hismandolin and talked with Nick (Note the confusion again over who playedthe mandolin.). The others sat on their packs to “do their own things”. Onestates “I am going to deal with adjusting the equipment.”Here, they separated from Blinov’s hunting party who caught a prisoner truckfor their own trip on up into the Urals.That night, with moist wood and below zero temperatures, it would take thegroup six hours to boil water in Vizhai. They had earlier not been able to boilwater at all. This would later become a critical point in their survival.Luda Dubinina had relatives in the area and they soon all met an old friend ofhers, Ognev, called “the Beard” by the others for his red beard.

JANUARY 27, 1959Five Days to Live

With plans to reach the Second Severny (northern) some 24 kilometers awayand which was now an abandoned ghost town of 2025 houses, Luda’srelative, Ognev, gave directions to Igor on how to find the one suitableabandoned house left there to stay in. Luda’s grandparents then transportedtheir equipment there by horse. They bought four loaves of soft warm breadfor the trip and left quite late at 4:00 PM owing to having to wait on hay forthe horse. The boys rewrote a song and Luda noted in her diary of how onesings beautifully. They heard a number of illegal Gulag prison songs andLuda disapproved, citing Article 58 – Counter Revolutionary Crimes andby doing so demonstrated she was well schooled on communist propagandadoctrine. Following along the River Ushma, the trip appears to have taken sixhours due to the slow speed of the horse but the members were thankful fornot having to carry their gear.

Yuri Yudin took sick at this point and could not continue. A possiblegeology student, he wanted to stay long enough to look for gold at theabandoned gold miner’s settlement ahead.They arrived at the abandoned settlement in the dark by going on ahead ofthe horse which arrived later. They found the correct house but severalmembers cut their hands on rusted nails. This would later raise the questionof whether or not tetanus played any role in their subsequent deaths (It didnot.). They would spend the night here.

The abandoned mining camp

JANUARY 28, 1959Four Days to Live

After an unsuccessful search for gold, the members parted company withYuri Yudin, shown here being hugged by Luda in farewell below:

Below, Zena says goodbye to Yuri while Zolotarev looks on in a belted skijacket:

The clothing worn by the group would later prove instrumental indetermining their fate.

Yuri Yuden would be the only survivor to tell the tale. He would never seehis friends alive again.According to Yudin:“If I had a chance to ask God just one question. It would be, “What reallyhappened to my friends that night?”To which this author replies; No, Yuri. You don’t really want to know.

Luda, Slobodin, Nick, and Zina in hats and hooded, belted ski coats.

The obvious similarity in their clothing is not by accident. It’s by design. Itwas a requirement for the trip set by their team advisor.For the remaining nine, after Yuri Yudin left, the trip was fairly simple. Ifthey followed the right bank of the Lovza River, they’d reach the tributaryfork of the Auspii River and, from there, by following it to its source, they’dbe within 12 miles of their destination, Mt. Otorten. There was not muchchance of getting lost. Still, they took precautions against that by makingtheir own map to mark their way back. They began the trip taking turnsleading for ten minutes at a time (The leader plowed a trail for those behindbut, for the leader, this was hard work.). They noted the snow wassignificantly less deep than last year, meaning some had been here before(obviously including Luda). They often had to stop to wipe the melting snowoff their skis, meaning the temperature had warmed up considerably (Yuri

and Nick were not wearing mittens above.). They encountered few obstacles(banks or cliffs) and the terrain was mostly flat for less exertive skiing. YuriKri stayed at the rear in order to make sketches of the route so they would notget lost.They stopped at 5:30 PM (a late stop) and set up the tent for the first time. The notation was made, “The guys are busy with the stove” by Luda andindicates all seven men were preoccupied with it. And then “With somethings completed and others not, we sit for dinner.”Shown below is a diagram of the size and layout of the tent with the stove inplace:

The tent was about 5 feet by 20 and was suspended by a single rope running the length of the middle ofthe tent. A grommet rope (1) supported both the middle roof of the tent plus the suspended stove (2). The metal stove had a collapsible side exhaust pipe (3) for transportation that vented out the frontentrance of the tent. The stove could be packed up and carried in its own carry bag with wood inside it.

They built a fire pit, sat around it, and sang songs. Rustik even tried to teachthe pretty Zina how to play his mandolin. Again and again they resumedtheir discussions, mostly about love. It was likely Zina who led theseromantic discussions, having her choice of men (She had dated two membersof the group and had an attraction for Yuri Yuden before he left.). Someonesaid they needed to write their ideas down. When they decided to turn in for the night, no one wanted to sleep by the“blazing” stove in the front half of the tent and not all nine could sleep in itsrear compartment. So Yuri Kri was elected by all to sleep in the frontcompartment. He did so “with terrible cursing that we betrayed him”. Theystayed awake late that night arguing about something.

JANUARY 29, 1959Three Days to Live

They reached the River Auspii today, following a native Mansi trail. Alongthe way they found the Lovzi River partly frozen over but not enough to skion. The temperature was -13C (9 degrees F) and there was little wind.

A skier examines a Mansi trail marker. The skier is wearing mittens, ski pants, belted jacket and a packor standard cross country attire. Because cross country skiing is hard work, their own body heat makesfur coats unnecessary. Yet they become necessary once the skier stops and his body temperature drops. Around his feet you can see his belted ski bindings.

JANUARY 30, 1959Two Days to Live

The temperature on this day varied from -17C to -13C with night timetemperatures of -26C (-15F). The weather had gotten worse. A strong windcame out of the southwest, clouds were thick, and snow began to fall. Thegroup, however, considered this normal for the northern Urals and they wereare well prepared with warm clothing although boiling water was still aproblem. The Mansi signs, which tell about the animals here, rest stops, andother things, still continued but the deer trails ended. The trees thinned outand there were now growths of dwarf birches and pines, a sign of increasingelevation.

By now, the group’s lack of protective eyewear (Zina had it but is nowherephotographed wearing it) would be producing a condition known as“windburn” or reddening of the skin. This is mentioned because some debateexists on the skin color of their bodies when found.The River Auspii was also not frozen over as expected so they could not skion it either for easy travel. Instead they had to ski along the river banks. Bynightfall, the wind was out of the west and blowing hard enough to shake thesnow from the tree boughs. They set the tent up between two spruces and duganother fire pit for the night. At this point, they were ahead of schedule, making faster time than expected. It seemed all was well.

JANUARY 31, 1959One Day to Live

The sky was perfectly clear today but the wind was actually worse. It wasstill out of the west and strong enough to be shaking the snow out of thepines. They left about 10:00 AM that morning using the Mansi trail. Theyfound sign of the Mansi deer hunter himself and realized they must havepassed by his camp yesterday. The temperature was -18C to -24C (-11F). This was colder than expected and visibility was very low. The poor weatherwas about to have its effects on their progress today.It especially effected their skiing which became the hardest yet of the trip. Atrail had to be broken in the snow for the skis. The leader who broke the pathhad to take off his pack to lighten his load to do it. Even then it was still suchhard work that, when the leader returned to the others to get his pack, it wasnecessary for him to rest another 10-15 minutes just to catch his breath. While he did so, the next person in line took over for him in clearing the wayonly doing it now in full gear. This skier too quickly tired and had to stop. Yet by this means at least a trail existed for the next seven to follow even if itonly went as far as the second skier. There the process had to start all overagain. They made only one third their expected pace; an average of just onemile per hour.This slow speed did not go unnoticed by Igor Dyatlov. Although they wereahead of schedule up until now, if this continued, they’d fall behind andreturn too late in time for the spring school semester. Because of this, thedecision was made to try and save time and leave the Auspii River Valleyprematurely and take a heading northwest directly for Hill 805 and thenMount Ortorten itself beyond. This differed from their original plan whichwas to continue west up the Auspii River to Hill 663 and build a storagecache there before going on up to Hill 805.The purpose of the storage cache was to leave behind as much equipment init as possible in order to lighten their load before entering the pass between

Hill 805 and Hill 1079 (known today as Hill 1096 and hereafter so referred). That pass today is now known as Dyatlov Pass and was the steepest part oftheir planned trip. The lightening of their load was intended to make climbingthe entrance to the pass easier. Once they reached the top of the ridgebetween Hill 1096.7 and 805 they would have been roughly eleven milesfrom the mountain with fairly easy skiing.The party did not plan to return from Mount Otorten by Dyatlov Pass butinstead to ski all the way around the east side of the mountain and come backdown via the west side, then circle back east and pick up their cachedequipment on the way home. Hill 663 was the obvious place to leave theirexcess equipment because it was both on the way up and on the way back.Plus, as the highest elevation along the river, it was also easy to find againand had trees from which to build the cache. In trying to save time by turning prematurely towards Hill 805 they bypassedHill 663. Hill 805 marked the east side of the entrance of the pass that led toMount Otorten. Igor expected, in taking this shortcut, to find a spotsomewhere along the way to build an above ground equipment cache in thefew trees that remained between them now and Hill 805. However, thisdidn’t happen and, when they reached Hill 805, they stopped still in fullgear. According to Igor Dyatlov’s diary:"We are working out new methods of a more productive walk. We aregradually separating from Auspii. Rising is continuous but rather smooth.Spruces have been left behind at last and we have gotten to the forestboundary. The wind is west, warm, shrill ... It's a frozen snow... a bareground. There is no use to think about constructing a storage shed.”The very first sentence tells us their going is still slow and they’re looking forways to improve progress. This is unusual because he describes it as “frozensnow” which is usually referred to as “crust snow”. It is often encounteredon un-groomed forest trails and refers to the top of the snow melting from thewarm winds and then refreezing at night allowing the skis to skim over it thenext morning. The only reason for them to be making slow progress over“smooth”, “continuous”, and “bare ground” would have been if it was acontinuous rise in elevation in excess of 5 degrees. Only such an uphill gradeshould have slowed them down. If so, Igor Dyatlov had failed to account for

this steeper grade when he departed from their original planned route (He hadmeasured the other grades along their planned route before they left on thetrip using elevation maps.). Further, he failed to account for the trees endingbefore he could build a storage cache in them along the way to Hill 805(“Spruces have been left behind at last and we have gotten to the forestboundary.”).Their failure to build a cache along the way represented a significant failure. It meant they’d have to take their heavy gear with them up the steep passentrance on the left side of Hill 805 and all the way to Mount Otorten andback again.They did not reach Hill 805 until 4:00 PM or just an hour before sunset. It isclear that Igor Dyatlov intended at this point to enter the east side of the pass. The next campsite past Hill 805 was Hill 611 just a few miles further and alsoon the east side of the pass (and actually a downhill ski once past Hill 805.).But now, looking up at the steep slope of the pass entrance at Hill 805, theyrealized they would never reach the top before sunset especially in full gear. They’d end up looking for Hill 611 in the dark in what was already lowvisibility. The party was well aware of the dangers of getting lost, havingmapped the way they had come even when following a river (an obviouslandmark to follow back). This extra precaution was likely based upon thisbeing a practice trip for a future trip together to the Arctic regions, whichthey stated was part of the reason behind this trip and where there would beno rivers to follow.Thus, they now had to make a decision. Should they press on in full gear inthe dark up the pass or turn back and try again tomorrow? An hour before sunset, they turned around. Igor Dyatlov wrote:“It is about 4 o’clock. We have to choose a place to sleep. We are goingdown to the south - to Auspii valley. This is probably the snowiest place. Thewind isn’t strong; the snow is 1.2 - 2 meters thick.”The party was exhausted (“We have to choose a place to sleep.”). AlthoughIgor never mentions he was at the west base of Hill 805, he had to be in orderto turn south to reach Hill 663, a point conceded by all researchers (“We aregoing down to the south.”).

They then returned back to the Auspii Valley and Hill 663, their originaldestination. Hill 663 not only represented a place to build the cache but also aplace to collect firewood for the night where there was none at all on Hill 805(It's a frozen snow... a bare ground.”).Igor’s admission to changing skiing techniques this day and taking a shortcutin the hope of bypassing Hill 663 indicates he was unhappy with theirprogress that day even though they were ahead of schedule. Had they beenable to make it up the east side of Hill 805 to camp that night at Hill 611, theywould have saved four miles off the trip over camping at Hill 663. At theirlast rate of speed, reaching Hill 611 would have saved them four hours. Butnow, by having to turn back, they not only didn’t save any time but lost atleast two more hours as they arrived too late in the dark at Hill 663 to buildtheir planned equipment cache. They would have to wait until tomorrow tobuild it. The original plan called for it to be built that day.If saving four hours was important to the group than losing another two morewas also important. Igor had already judged they could be late in finishingthe trip and that was even more probable now. The problem of how to savetime or increase speed was greater now than ever. They either had to findanother way to shorten the distance or a way to ski faster.Igor had now gone from “ahead of schedule” to “behind schedule” in not justa single decision but in a single day. The cache was to be built today. Itwasn’t. Igor was now behind schedule. He knew it when he turned northprematurely for Hill 805 and he knew it, again, when he arrived at Hill 663without building a cache. Valuable time had been lost not just once buttwice.Most researchers conclude that Igor planned to camp at Hill 611 this nightbut had to turn back and that conclusion is correct. This thinking wouldcause them to conclude he would try for Hill 611 again the next day as itoffered wind protection and firewood as well as a steerable landmark in poorweather.No. He would not.Hill 611 was his destination only if he had made it past Hill 805 today. Thenext day, Hill 611 was only four miles from Hill 663. Why go only fourmiles when, even at only one mile an hour, his previous speed, he could do at

least eight miles?If he could do eight miles instead of four, he’d gain about four hours and Igorwas looking for ways to save time. If they opted to bypass Hill 611, theycould not only make eight miles instead of four, which was not only twice asfar, but cut another two miles off the trip by bypassing Hill 611 as Hill 611was on the opposite side of the pass as Mount Otorten. If they bypassed Hill611 to save time, just as they tried to bypass Hill 663 to save time, theyshould save about six hours.This was virtually exactly the amount of time they had lost that day in gettingto Hill 663.Incentive existed then to bypass Hill 611. Most researchers reject theyconsidered this because, had Igor’s party opted to bypass Hill 611 and makestraight for Mount Otorten and even made eight miles instead of four, theywould have ended up stopped in the middle of nowhere with no protection,no firewood, and possibly no visible landmark. The lack of a visiblelandmark is an invitation to getting lost in bad weather.Yet, as we shall see, Igor was about to see a solution to the problem of endingup in the middle of nowhere. To gain those extra four miles, Igor Dyatlovwas now about to kill himself and his entire party. Although his decisionwould mystify students afterwards for nearly the next sixty years, it madeperfect sense to him at the time.It was Igor Dyatlov who wrote this day’s group diary entry (They tookturns.). He had good reason to do so. The group diary (they could keep theirown personal diaries) would be turned over to the Communist Partyafterwards as evidence supporting their request to be made “Level 3”tourist/hikers. Had anyone else but Igor written it, it would have shown histwo leadership mistakes. First, he had unsuccessfully veered off from hisplanned route. That mistake led to his second mistake, the failure to build theequipment cache planned for that day. Igor’s entry makes no mention of hismistakes. He’s afraid he won’t get his “Level 3” approval if his errorsbecome known. Instead, his turn off to Hill 805 and back had to bereconstructed afterwards from their private diaries. But we do discover something from his entry. They’re dead beat tired:

“Although being tired and exhausted we set about preparing a place tosleep. Firewood is not enough. Spruces are wet and puny. We made fire onthe logs… do not feel like digging a hole.”The group was too tired to even dig a fire pit (“Did not feel like digging ahole.”). A fire pit is dug in snow down to bare ground to keep the meltingsnow beneath the fire from putting it out. According to his own calculations,such a fire pit would have to be dug only a meter deep to reach solid ground. It was not done. And the equipment cache that was to be built today wouldbe put off until tomorrow. They were simply too tired. Again, it is a signthey were skiing more than a 5 degree slope to reach Hill 805.Still, Igor is a knowledgeable camper (“We made fire on the logs” refers tobuilding a fire on top of wet firewood instead of on the snow as, building afire above the snow on wet logs also prevents the fire from sinking down intothe melting snow and putting the fire out.). His mistakes were only promptedby the desire to make speed. He finishes the diary as follows: “We have supper right into the tent. It’s warm. It is hard to imagine such acomfort somewhere on the ridge where the piercing wind howls, a hundredkilometers away from populated areas." What does he mean, “It’s warm”? The casual reader might think he’s referring to it being warm weatheroutside. No. He specifically stated that outside the tent “the piercing windhowls”. He meant it’s warm inside the tent. He’s stating “it’s hard toimagine such a comfort” inside the tent when outside “the piercing windhowls”. They had supper inside the tent rather than outside because it waswarmer and more comfortable inside the tent versus eating outside wherethey had to make a fire “on the logs”. That the tent is warm inside and thatthey had super inside is evidence they used the stove.And Igor was very pleased with the result, calling it “surprisingly good”.The evidence that they used the stove that night would be photographed thenext morning when Rustik Slobodin’s coat caught fire in the tent in themiddle of the night after Igor wrote this entry.

FEBRUARY 1, 1959Last Day to Live

The campers woke up to a burned coat. No doubt, Slobodon’s coat was inthe front half of the tent with the stove still burning and suspended from theroof grommet rope. For sparks to be flying after they went to sleep indicatesthey went to sleep with it still going, making the tent “surprisingly warm”. That no one woke up to a coat burning in three different places indicates notonly how tired they were but also how long the stove could burn for evenwithout any tending.

On this, their last day to live, no diary notes were taken. This was the first,and only, day a group record was not kept (Though they had the opportunityto do so.). We shall see why. However, it is likely they first overslept due tothe exhaustion of trying to reach Hill 805 the day before and it was this sameexhaustion that likely caused them to sleep through a burning coat. They would have started out the day looking for a place to build a cache fortheir extra equipment. They finally left their extra equipment on a forestplatform set high above the ground 300 meters west of their camp site, anindication of how long they had to search just to find such a place.It is important to note that they failed to cache the stove amongst the itemsthey left behind on Hill 663 to pick up on their way back. One would expectthem to leave both the stove and its wood behind to save weight. They leftneither. This is important because Igor had observed the day before how “Spruceshave been left behind at last and we have got to the forest boundary. Thewind is west, warm, shrill ... It's a frozen snow... a bare ground… Firewoodis not enough.”Yet there are actually two good reasons to take the stove. First, they hadfound without it they couldn’t boil water. Second, with it, the inside of thetent was “surprisingly” warm. So they took it along. However, it’s useless totake it along without firewood as where they were headed there was “a frozensnow... a bare ground… Firewood is not enough.”So they must have also packed the stove with firewood they found on Hill663 before leaving for the trip to Mount Otorten. The stove was designed tocarry its own firewood.

The next leg of their trip would have been to start out from where they madethe stash on the west side of Hill 663 and then ski northwest to the mouth ofthe pass that led north to Mount Otorten, now only some twelve miles away. Although lightening their load was to help ease the hard climb, the onlyactual hard climb was the pass entrance itself, one half mile northwest ofwhere they now stood. The pass entrance was marked by Hill 1096.7 to theirleft and Hill 805 to their right with a steep uphill climb over the ridgebetween the two. This climb was over 100 meters up and way too steep toski and would have to be sidestepped. However, once they got up over theridge of the entrance to the pass, they’d be at about 800 meters elevation(Higher if on the west side of the pass or lower if on the east side of thepass.). The climb for the next eleven miles to Otorten would actually only beabout an additional 350 meters in altitude or about 30 meters per mile. Thiswas very doable. Thus, the hardest part ahead was the initial pass entrance in

front of them which was over three times that grade and the reason forlightening their gear. But, today, Igor did not steer north for Hill 805 as he had the day before. Heset a northwest compass course from their cache site exactly halfway betweenHill 1096.7 and Hill 805. This not only meant a steeper climb than the routeto Hill 611 via 805 but actually placed him on the east slope of Hill 1096.7,the Mansi Mountain of Death. They were steering for the wrong side of thepass to reach the wooded campsite of Hill 611.It is a fact that Igor previously steered for elevation landmarks using compasscourses as he had done the day before in steering for Hill 805 (to be followedby steering for Hill 611) and then Hill 663 when that failed. By taking acompass course on an obvious high elevation landmark and then steering thatcourse the visibility could drop to zero and you wouldn’t get lost. By simplystaying on your compass course, you’ll eventually reach your landmark andyou’ll know when you get there because you’ll hit a hill regardless of theweather. As long as you can either see the hill or can ski a straight line(compass course) to it you won’t get lost.Anyone using this technique would have steered a compass course from Hill663 to Hill 805 and then, from there, taken a compass heading on Hill 611and steered straight to it. Thus, regardless of the weather, one would end upwith protection and firewood at the end of the day at Hill 611. This is whatall researchers expected them to do. Only they didn’t. They did not set a compass course for Hill 805.Instead, Igor Dyatlov steered off into oblivion and history.Recall, Igor could probably save six hours if he bypassed Hill 611 and he wasseveral hours behind time. Recall again the three reasons for why he wasexpected to steer for Hill 611.

1) It provided protection against wind2) It’s trees provided wood for a fire3) It was an identifiable landmark in case they were caught in badweather.

If Igor could solve these three problems he could bypass Hill 611 and savesome six hours. He believed his tent provided protection against the windand, by taking the stove along with them packed with wood, he could build a

fire. That left only the problem of finding an identifiable landmark in casethey were caught in bad weather. In fact, Igor was using two landmarks. The two landmarks he used todaywere hills 1096 and 805. But, instead of steering for either one, he steeredfor exactly halfway between them. He didn’t steer for Hill 1096 because itwas too steep. And he didn’t steer for Hill 805 because he wasn’t headed forHill 611. By bypassing Hill 611 (which was on the east or wrong side of thepass anyway) he would save two miles in reaching Otorten.Thus, he steered right down the middle of the pass but with a plan for notgetting lost. Recall, the reason for using hills for navigation was because, inlow visibility, you always knew when you reached your destination becauseyou’ll hit a slope. In this case, had he stayed on his compass course betweenHill 1096 and Hill 805 and climbed the pass between them, he would havestill eventually reached a slope even if the visibility dropped to zero. Only inthis case it would have been a downhill slope instead of an uphill slope - asign they had reached the northeast tip of Hill 1096. They would then knowwhere they were. From there they could then either stop and wait for theweather to clear or simply turn west in the overcast and ski along the northslope to where the pass turns right (north) again. Igor Dyatlov will not getlost. By steering exactly halfway between Hills 1096 and 805, he believed hecould solve all three problems. And, if he ended up on an unprotected slopein the middle of nowhere, he planned to be “surprisingly warm” with hisstove packed with firewood.Although the entire group likely was aware of the plan, there were at leasttwo primary participants in developing and carrying it out. Igor’sparticipation was photographed showing him leading the group to the passentrance with the stove on his back. Yet “Alex” Zolotarev was also aprimary participant to the plan. He had the compass, an absolute necessityfor carrying it out. He also, like Igor the night before, volunteered to writethat day’s group journal entry. Yet he made no mention of the compasscourse he had to have taken or any mention of where they were. Like Igor had done the night before in writing the group diary andeliminating their mistake of steering for Hill 805 instead of Hill 663,Zolotarev was now eliminating from the record that he had set a compasscourse that would place them “in the middle of nowhere” on the side of an

unprotected wind slope. When the Communist Party read their group diaryafterwards to decide whether or not to grant them “Level 3” status, therewould be mention in it of the group trying unsuccessfully to bypass Hill 663or Hill 611. The Party would assume they left Hill 663 as planned for Hill611 and finished the trip on time. With their mistakes unrecorded they wouldhave obtained their “Level 3” ratings. That is, if they had lived. They didn’t know it then but the moment Alex and Igor took their compassheading that morning, Death would be right behind them, following theirevery step. They would spend this night, their last alive, in such desperationand frantic terror that the last one to die apparently committed suicide.This picture was probably taken as they left their cache west of Hill 663 tohead northwest for the pass entrance:

It is clearly much more overcast than when they got up that morning andphotographed Slobodin in his burned jacket. This overcast likely set inbetween when they photographed Slobodin and then sited, and built, thecache. They could only be steering a compass course in this weather and so

Igor and Alex must have taken their course bearing earlier when Hill 805 andHill 1096 were still visible. They would have to be very careful today not todeviate from this course at all or risk getting loss. Their position at the end ofthe day shows they steered it perfectly. They had, as they left Hill 663 to steer northwest with their bright, smilingfaces still laughing at Rustik’s burned coat, maybe twelve hours to live – thelast six in absolute frantic desperate survival beyond anything they had everimagined.

Three Weeks LaterFEBRUARY 23, 1959Base of Mount Otorten

Anton Sergei stepped down from the helicopter along with its rescue teamand onto the snow, following Boris Slobcov. He had never even seen ahelicopter before, let alone ridden in one.He was a hired guide to find nine lost hikers who had failed to arrive atVizhai as they had planned on February 12. Three days ago, Slobcov andeight other students from the Polytechnic school had finally given up waitingand left Sverdlovsk to come here and look for them, hiring Anton and oneother as their guides.These people had money. When Anton suggested he track the students fromIvdel, from where the hikers left, Slobcov disagreed. As the hikers plannedto come back by a different route, it would take sixteen days to cover thestudent’s route that way and by which time they could all be dead. Instead,Slobcov wanted to start the search at Otorten Mountain, the hiker’s midpointobjective. If the hikers’ were in trouble it would most likely be either there orat Mount Oyko-Chukura, 70 km to the west and the most dangerous section,and so the sooner the searchers got there the better. When Anton asked howhe possibly planned to get to Otorten in order to start his search there, he wastold by A-2 helicopter.These people had money.

Anton was a tall man, six foot and well built at 215 pounds, who had beenborn and raised here. He was unusual twice over to the other Russians in thathe had blonde hair and blue eyes and wore winter white (Even his fur hat wasof white rabbit fur) while they all wore dark and fox fur. Because of hisfeatures he was often mistaken for an escaped German prisoner from IvdelLAG, though they had all been released years ago. In fact, he wasn’t Germanat all. His father was from Sweden and had been a former gold miner here. He had married a Russian woman (When no one could pronounce his father’slast name, they had taken to calling him by his mother’s.). Where his fatherhad failed as a gold miner he had succeeded as an outfitter, training the otherminers moving in on how to survive the winter’s here from his experience inSweden. Anton had learned from his father the tricks to surviving the localwinter and, when the miners all left when the gold mines played out, he hadremained to trade with the local Mansi who raised reindeer and sled dogs,trapped beaver, cultivated fields and fished the rivers. There weren’t verymany Mansi around here, maybe 200 men and their families, but he traded

with them for their produce, offering weapons, ammunition, tools, alcohol,and wool blankets in exchange for furs and deer skins which, in turn, he soldto the nearby prison or to the city of Sverdlovsk where they probably endedup in Moscow. Since Mansi don’t move towards White people but awayfrom them, he often traveled to them in order to trade, especially in winter. Itwas because he had to go to them that he wore winter white. On his way into trade with the Mansi he laid traps and, on his way back, he checked them. But, either direction, the white hid him from deer to shoot them and so evenif the Mansi refused to trade with him (which sometimes happened) he stillcame back with something.It was for their dislike of Whites that few Mansi bothered to learn to speakRussian but Anton had bothered to learn Mansi. And, with his father’steachings, he had learned to travel these cold, icy grounds, even in winter. That made him a guide for hire, the only one of two to be found in tenthousand square miles.Today though he had been hired to find some lost students. Yet he had neverbeen up on Otorten Mountain before. He never went where there was onlydeath and cold. There were no Mansi there to trade with and nothing to trapor shoot up there. In fact, the Mansi name for this mountain was “Don’t gothere”. So he didn’t.Until now anyways he hadn’t and now it was by helicopter – or almost. Thehelicopter had actually been forced to land on level ground and away fromany updrafts so they were not actually on the mountain at all, simply near it. Climbing it would take another day.Slobcov had divided his searchers into two groups, one for each guide. Hisgroup would search Otorten and the other search the northern Auspii Riverbank the hikers had come up by. Anton wished he’d been assigned to theother group. It would be dreadfully cold and windy up where he was going.What would tourists be doing up there anyway? Not even a bird survivedthere. The snow covered mountain above them was nothing but a barrenwasteland, entirely devoid of trees. There was nothing to see and nothing ofvalue. No one in their right mind would go up there. The population wasexactly zero (And, nearly sixty years later, was still zero.). It was not a place

to get lost in and even boiling water would be a challenge.Like everyone else, he now ducked under the still churning chopper bladesand their downward blast of cold air blowing up the snow as he followedSlobcov.He had been told the students wanted to climb this mountain to honor theCommunist Party and to practice for a later arctic hike. It was Slobcov whocalled them “tourists”. Anton had to have it explained to him what a touristeven was. Evidently they did this for fun and they were rated as “level 2”hikers. Anton did not know what that was either. And he was not impressedwith the rating when it was explained to him. It seemed rather vague to him. Other than knowing how to start a fire, it simply measured how many daysand nights you had been out and how far you’d gone and with no regard toweather. That told him nothing of what they knew. But Slobcov stated youcannot go for as many days or as many miles as Level 2 required withoutknowing how to survive. Anton accepted that as it made some sense. But itstill told him nothing about what these nine missing campers knew. Werethey experts? Amateurs?That Anton did not know how to think like them was okay, said Slobcov,because he did. All he needed Anton to do was find and follow their trail. Anton looked up the side of the mountain in the freezing cold with dread. Why would anyone want to go up there?

Four hours later, Anton was still trying to boil water on his alcohol stove foroatmeal to keep the other three student search members from freezing todeath and they had still not even reached the mountain they were to search. The three men were Oleg Grebennik, Moises Akselrod, and Boris Slobcov. Anton turned to the local man that had hired him, Ivan Paschin, to convincethese others of reason. One does not have to go clear to the top of a mountainto determine if someone climbed it. One need only go around the south endlooking for their trail up the east side or down the west. If neither was found,it made no sense to go all the way up to the top.He was told though that’s what they were going to do; ski around it from thesouthwest side to the north side, looking for signs of the party coming down. If they were in trouble, it was most likely here. Anton pointed out that, above1,000 meters, the wind would likely blow away any sign of the party andOtorten was 1182 meters high. They could reach the top and not find a trail.

Ivan understood that but said the hikers would likely plant a CommunistParty flag to mark their ascent to the top, so there would either be a flag thereor not. If there wasn’t, they hadn’t made it this far and, if there was, theyhad. Since this was the midpoint of the planned hike, whatever they learnedwould allow them to cut the search area in half.Anton again replied they need not go all the way to the top to look for a flagto know if they had gotten this far. They most likely would encounter skitracks at the 800 meter level where the wind was less likely to blow the tracksaway and it did not snow often enough to fill them. Any other elevation wasnot likely to produce such results. If they found tracks at 800 meters on theway up, then they had made it this far and, if they didn’t, they hadn’t. Therewas no need to climb another 400 meters.This made sense to Ivan who explained to him that the tourists’ planned routeshowed they were to go up a ten mile long valley from the southeast and thenski around the north slope of Otorten before coming down the southwest side,the side they were now going up. Anton knew the way the skiers were takingup, putting his finger on the map at Hill 1096.7 which marked the westentrance to the pass. But Anton did not know the hill as Hill 1096.7. He knew it as Kholat-Syakhyl, the “mountain of death”. This was the direction they should besearching. If the hikers had made it to Otorten, they would have left a trailhere.When Anton pointed out to Ivan Paschin that they were on the southwest sideof the mountain and not the southeast side where the hikers would have goneup, Ivan agreed but pointed out that the helicopter had landed them to thesouthwest so that’s where they had to start from and the west side was themore dangerous for the tourists so they had started here. When Anton arguedthat climbing the southwest face of a mountain would not find tourists whoclimbed the southeast face, he was ignored. They were educated men and hewas not. They were all from a university. Who was he?He pointed out to Ivan that, if they did not find any sign of the tourists whenthey reached the top, they should come back down by the east side. Again,coming down the east side, they could find tracks at about 800 meters. Thatwas the only way to rule out whether the tourists reached Otorten or not.

Finally, Ivan told him, no. They would not do that. That was not the wayback to the helicopter and they had no radio to contact it so they had to comeback down the west side to reach it. Besides, the students pointed out, themost likely place for the tourist party to camp was on the north face as itwould take them all day to reach it from the southeast after a morning startfrom Hill 611. If they were in trouble it would be there where they almostcertainly had to stop to camp. So they were going up to the north face and there to look for a flag. And itwas a barren wasteland the like of which he had never seen.

FEBRUARY 1, 1959The Mountain of Death

At about 12:15 PM, Igor Dyatlov brought his party of skiers to a halt. Theyhad reached the midpoint between Hill 1096.7 and Hill 805. Both hillsshared the same ridge between them, a steep south slope that had to beclimbed to enter the pass to Mount Otorten beyond. It was over 100 metershigh and, to look at it, you’d swear the slope of it was nearly 45 degrees. Itwould be the steepest climb of their entire planned trip and it just came out ofnowhere. Indeed, the weather was so miserable with snow and overcast theycouldn’t even see the top of the slope.Behind him, one of the other members snapped this picture as they stopped atthe base of the bank that led up to the pass between hills 1096.7 and 805.

This photo, possibly taken with a flash camera by the bottom glare, vaguelyshows what’s ahead of them. No trees and a sudden rise in slope ahead canbe seen. The lead skier (Igor) has stopped right where the steep rise begins,and can be seen turning his skis to the left to “sidestep” the grade. Histurning left instead of right to sidestep his way up means he intended stay onthe Hill 1096.7 side of the pass versus Hill 805 (Facing left, he would have toslide backwards to move towards Hill 805.). His stopping also allowed thisskier to pause and take the picture. It’s snowing and the other skiers are allusing the “uphill walking” technique common to 5 degree angle slopes forspeed but which technique is now no longer possible. They are one half milefrom where they departed and likely skied it in 30 minutes. The slope aheadis well in excess of 20 degrees and they must now sidestep it in order toclimb. Their previous fast progress will now come to a sudden halt. This photo was taken two miles away from their next campsite. Based on

their previous day’s speed of one mile per hour and, with two miles to go, itwould have taken them two hours reach it. Since they reached the campsiteat 5:00 PM (sunset) it reasons to many researchers this picture was taken twohours earlier or at 3:00 PM.However, that calculation is almost certainly wrong. It ignores the steepslope which they would have to sidestep and which would have dramaticallyreduced their speed well below one mile per hour. Instead of two hours awayfrom reaching their campsite when this picture was taken, they were morelikely four plus hours away. This would place the time of this picture asabout 1:00 PM or even earlier. The mistaken belief that this picture was taken at 3:00 PM would cause manyto say Igor had made a “serious blunder” in his timing to enter the pass. Hedid not. As previously mentioned, he already knew he couldn’t make it upthis same hill at 4:00 PM from the previous day. To allow himself only oneextra hour to make an even higher climb would be poor planning and Igorwas known for his planning. Further, for this picture to have been taken at3:00 PM would mean they did not leave Hill 663 until 2:30 PM. In theinterests of not losing time, Igor would have left Hill 663 much earlier(Basically as soon as their equipment cache was completed.). Although they had lost time that morning to take time to find a suitable cachesite for their gear and likely overslept from exhaustion from the night before,they likely still left by noon or thereabouts meaning this picture could havebeen taken at 12:30 or the 1:00 PM stated above versus the 3:00 PMbelieved. Indeed! It’s virtually impossible to be 3:00 PM. This slope though wouldhave been brutal to climb. For a 5 degree slope, the members wouldnormally ski uphill by poling while “walking” on their skis as shown above. A somewhat steeper slope of 10-12 degrees would require they point their skitips out to prevent sliding back and then “trudging” their way up (called aherringbone). But a slope of this degree (and this slope was steeper thanMount Otorten itself) required the skier to turn completely perpendicular tothe slope and climb it sideways. The skier could be moving as little as onefoot at a time per step, hardly an efficient way of travel (More experiencedskiers could take longer steps.). It would be liking turning sideways on a

flight of stairs, while wearing long skis, and climbing a ten story building onestep at a time.Those who have cross country skied may think they know how slow anddifficult this climb would be but – No – they don’t. Photographs taken of thehikers’ skis show they used leather buckle bindings. These bindings hadbeen outdated since 1866. While modern skis attach the back of the heel andthe front toes to the ski, the skis of the Dyatlov party were held in place by astrap over the top of the foot similar to that shown below:

Both skis clearly show at the top the leather buckle that straps over the top ofthe foot (See short straps.). This keeps the ski from falling down off the frontof the foot. To keep the foot from coming out of it backwards, the heel isbelted in to the top loop from front to back (see longer hanging belt straps). A friction surface was added to the ski beneath the sole (see dark treadedarea) to help keep the feet from completely twisting off the ski while turning

(requiring many small steps to do until the desired turn angle is reached or, ifthe boot came off, the ski would continue running straight.). This frictionsurface was completely ineffective for side stepping a hill because, if onelifted one’s foot straight up to “side step”, the heel would rise off andseparate from the ski’s friction surface and allow snow to pack between theheel and the friction surface. The friction surface would now cease to workbeing covered with crushed snow and ice. It would then have to be cleanedoff (The party complained about melting ice on the skis having to be wipedoff earlier in the trip. They were referring to the friction surface.). None ofthis happens with modern skis where the boot is clamped completely to theski. The Dyatlov party’s ski bindings would have been murderous forsidestepping in by today’s standards.It could be argued that the party could have “zigzagged” their way up the hilland made faster time. No. They could not have done that. A compasscourse requires traveling in a straight line and not zigzagging.They sidestepped it and in a straight line up the hill. Again, this would havebeen exhaustive work.Did their ski bindings kill them?No. They died by another force. They did, indeed, make it to the top. From there, they continued on theirnorthwest compass course which they stayed on, the plan being to do so untilthey either reached the northeast slope of Hill 1096 or the sun set, whichevercame first. Once they reached the top it was still an uphill ski along the eastside of Hill 1096 although they were now in the pass entrance. This wouldhave further slowed them down but there was nothing they could do aboutthat now. Visibility was almost zero. They had no choice but stay on theircompass course, uphill or not, or risk getting lost.Just before sunset at 5:02 PM, Igor brought the party to a stop on the east sideof Hill 1096 in a barren section surrounded by snow. The weather had failedto clear and, in fact, had gotten even worse. Worse still, they had saved notime with their brutal climb. They were still south of Hill 611 to the east ofthem, had failed to reach the northeast tip of the hill, and now had to stop

short of it. They would have to resume the same compass course tomorrow. They knew they were on the east slope of Hill 1096 but not how farnorthwest they had progressed on it (In fact, they were one mile short of theirdestination.). The visibility was so bad they couldn’t see where they were.They had no choice but to stop on the west side of the pass on an open,unprotected slope. All researchers agree Igor stopped west of his plannedroute (Though only by a few hundred yards or meters.). All assume he washere by accident (Some use the words he had “wandered off course.”).There is no truth to that at all. All of Igor’s actual camping sites would be offto one side or the other of his planned route. His planned route showed noplanned campsites at all except Hill 663 and then only to cache their excessequipment there. That he was west of his planned route simply meant that hedidn’t plan to camp east of it at Hill 611 and he did not. These researchersassumed he intended to be on the east side in search of Hill 611. To them,camping on the west side with no firewood and out in the wind made nosense. Thus, they believe he “wandered off course”.But Igor knew all along he was on the west side if for no other reason than itwas downhill to his right (east). If he was on the east side of the pass it eitherwould have been level or uphill. Further, he was skiing uphill. It wasdownhill from Hill 805 to Hill 611. So, unless Igor did not know thedifference between uphill and downhill, he knew where he was. And, to beable to steer in the low visibility he had to steer a compass course of which hesteered a perfectly straight line between both hills and his compass coursewas definitely not for Hill 611. The last thing he wanted to do was godownhill to his right and lose two miles when Otorten was uphill and to hisleft.They now had seven hours to live. Oddly, those who investigated the case first hand never thought Igor Dyatlovwas lost. They knew he knew where he was. They asked Yuri Yudinafterwards why Igor, when he found himself on the side of Hill 1096 in anopen, unprotected area, didn’t just simply downhill ski back to the tree line ofthe Auspii Valley they had come from to set up camp there at Hill 663 again

and start out once again in the morning?Yuri Yuden had no problem with the answer:"Dyatlov probably did not want to lose the altitude they had gained, or hedecided to practice camping on the mountain slope. ” Notice, they did not ask him why Igor didn’t steer for Hill 611. They knewthat wasn’t his destination by the compass route he had taken. And, inovercast, if they couldn’t see Hill 611 they couldn’t steer for it. Their onlyalternative to camping on the slope of Hill 1906 was to take a reversecompass bearing and steer back south to Hill 663 in the dark. Hence, theyasked Yuri why Igor didn’t do that.But notice Yuri’s answer. He’s correct on both points. Igor doesn’t want tolose the altitude he’s gained. If he went back to Hill 663 they’d lose theentire day’s progress and then have to climb the same entrance againtomorrow. No one wanted to climb that twice and Igor did not want to losean entire day’s progress. Time was already against him. It was the reason hetried taking a shortcut the day before and the reason he’s taking a shortcutnow. But, if they camped on the side of Hill 1096 even if it was out in theopen, they not only wouldn’t lose ground but it would allow Igor the chanceto practice camping on a mountain slope with his stove. Again, Yuri Yudin isright on both counts. To argue this wasn’t Igor’s plan invites the question ofhow did they plan to survive on the exposed east slope of Hill 1096 whenthey had previously been unable to boil water? And why carry the stove upsuch a steep slope instead of leaving it behind with their other heavy gear?Igor Dyatlov wasn’t really practicing much of anything when he camped onthat slope. He was simply repeating his camping experience of the nightbefore when he found the tent “surprisingly good” with the stove lit when,outside, “the piercing wind howls”.Is that not a description of camping he could expect to face out on theexposed slope of Hill 1096?Indeed! If they had not brought the stove with them they would have had tomake for Hill 611 for firewood or be faced with at least six hours to boilwater on the slope (Both their previous attempts to boil water without thestove having failed completely.).

While this choice of Igor’s made perfect navigational sense and the stovepreserved their ability to boil water, it still flew in the face of experiencedcamping. Camping on an exposed, high (almost 900 meter) slope in a pass(wind) can be a very unpleasant experience. No one wants to get caught inbad weather in these conditions. It’s why Zolotarev would fail to mentionwhere they were when he wrote that night’s group diary. They were notpracticing good camping and he knew it. They all knew it.Did they encounter bad weather?They were in wind, heavy snow, and poor visibility. That is usually thedefinition of bad weather. Did the weather kill them?No. They died by another means.This photograph was taken by the group this day. It could only have beentaken at Hill 663 that morning due to the trees and lack of fog:

It’s claimed to be a Russian yeti. Although the picture appears out of focus,that’s because the camera lens was focused on much closer trees ofremarkable clarity but which do not appear in this photo due to enlargement. The photo is genuine and not a hoax as the original negative was found. Inaddition, the Soviet investigation file admits Luda wrote this the very sameday:“We now know the snowman exists (lives).”They were the last words she would ever write. The person taking this picture knew what they were photographing. The“yeti” was centered in the photograph. The person taking this picture saw theabove and deliberately photographed it.

FEBRUARY 24, 1959Otorten Mountain

Today, Boris Slobcov searched the mountain with a rescue party. He foundno ski trails, no flags, and no records or anything else that would indicate theIgor Dyatlov party had made it this far. He did find, however, a nuisance. And the nuisance had a name. He was Anton Sergei, the hired guide who hadnever been here before. He was arguing they should be searching down themountain pass all the way to the southeast side to Hill 1096, a place which hecalled the Mountain of Death.He was overruled. They would head back down the way they had come, thesouthwest face, in order to return to the helicopter landing site from whichthey landed.

FEBRUARY 1, 1959Prelude to a Nightmare

Just before 5:00 PM Igor Dyatlov’s team began to prepare the tent site on theeast slope of Hill 1096 (or the west side of the pass). Shown below they aredigging out a level spot to set it on about 200 meters below the top of thehill. As previously shown, the tent was designed to be suspended from a ropetied and stretched between two trees with a staked out base. However, thelack of trees at this site required they use skis stuck in the snow in place oftrees:

The person on the left is about to set his ski as the rear tent support in placeof a tree. Just behind him and over his right shoulder the grommet ski canjust barely be seen. This will support the midpoint of the tent to keep the rooffrom sagging and also to support the suspended stove. In the background youcan see where they’ve set their other skis and ski poles in the snow whilepreparing camp. The closest pair of skis in the middle background of themare facing slightly off center from the others and driven deeper (The heelstraps are nearly touching the snow level.). This is to act as the front tent

support for the rope stretched to the ski the hiker to the left is now holding. The entrance to the tent will face away from the camera and at the middle skito the right.Notice, that you can see the straps on the ski poles behind them blowing inthe wind. They are all blowing high and to the left or pretty much in thesame direction as the person to the left is looking. This means the tent wasset up facing the wind.Notice, the person on the left is covered with snow. It’s still snowing. They’re on a snow covered slope, in the poor visibility, the wind is blowingso hard as to hold ski pole straps nearly straight out, and they do not knowhow far north they have come (Though they know they are still short of thenortheast tip of Hill 1096.). They are stuck here for the night by the failinglight. They will have to wait until the next day to resume their compasscourse northwest along the side of the slope until it slopes down. At thatpoint, they’ll have reached the northeast slope of Hill 1096 and get a good fixon where they are on a map to get their bearings even in a complete whiteout.It has been argued that the straps and bindings are actually frozen in thisposition. However, the next photo below shows they have moved and,therefore, are not frozen in place.This second photo was also taken during setting up camp. The person whotook this photo has hardly moved at all after taking the first photo:

The ski strap on the ski pole just to the right of the front support ski (right ofcenter) has just been raised higher as the wind speed (and snow) increases. The weather is not only getting worse but the ski strap on the pole is certainlynot frozen. It’s acting as a wind vane and pointing nearly straight at thoseassembling the tent. However, in both pictures, the ski pole strap visible furthest to the left is notpointing at the tent but pointing more left. The person taking these pictureswas facing roughly southeast and for the strap on that pole to be facing left isconsistent with a west wind and this is consistent with the evidence that thewind was blowing out of the west that day. Yet the middle ski pole strapfacing the entrance is more consistent with a southwest wind. This condition is produced by the west wind wrapping around the hill. Beingon the east side of a hill in a west wind creates a low pressure area. Thiscauses the wind to naturally bend around the hill to fill the low pressure spot. It’s the bending wind that is pointing the closer pole straps towards the tentwhile the one further away continues to point west.The hikers likely felt the west wind lessen the moment they reached this spotand, thinking themselves protected from it, pitched camp here as a goodspot. And, technically, the west wind would not be as strong here. Yet the

other straps still show a very high wind exists here. They are in a seriousblow.These photos also show they’re facing a problem in the direction of siting thetent. The entrance to the tent should face away from the wind or facenortheast. However, this was not done. It’s possible the wind curvingaround Hill 1096.7 alternated from south to north and just happened to bealternating south when these pictures were taken. However, not only do bothphotos show the same wind direction but subsequent photos demonstratesnow drifts formed at the tent entrance, evidence the entrance faced nearlydirectly into the wind bending from west to northeast. This is not somethingan experienced camper would do. Meanwhile the hikers are digging out a section on the side of the hill to notonly level the bottom of the tent out but also place the uphill side of the tentbelow the snowline to insulate it against the cold wind. This is correctlydone.As can be seen in both pictures, there are no trees to serve as wind breaks. The only windbreak against the west wind is Hill 1096 itself. Setting up atent high up on slope exposed to high winds is usually inadvisable as it ispossible for such a tent to be blown down or torn to shreds. They are campedabout two thirds of the way up the side of Hill 1096 or at about 875 metersaltitude on a 19 degree slope. This is over 250 meters above the natural windbreaks. They are in for it if the wind blows and, as the pictures show, it isand it’s getting worse.Had they camped at Hill 611 to their east they would been 200 meters belowthe windbreaks and likely within the trees there for far less wind. It isevident by Alex Zolotarev’s later actions that he understood the problem ofinadequate windbreaks yet he likely said nothing at the time of these photosas the evidence is that it was his hand that held the compass that put themthere. Again, in getting here, the party never once swerved off their compasscourse. First, because they never intended to and, second, visibility wouldn’thave allowed it (They almost certainly wouldn’t have been able to see Hill611 from here to even head for it.). When they left their cache 300 meterswest of Hill 663 that morning it was with the full knowledge and expectation

of camping out here on the exposed slope of Hill 1096, the “Mountain ofDeath”.As they set up the tent, daylight is now fading. They are exhausted and theweather is getting worse. Camping out in the open is seldom a good idea andthis was their first mistake. However, this mistake was deliberate on theirpart. To move to lower ground to escape the wind would have taken them offtheir compass course, an invitation to getting lost in a whiteout. Theirsecond mistake was when they set the tent up with the entrance nearly facingthe wind. This is never done because it allows a draft to blow in through thebuttoned up door flap (It did not have a zipper.). Igor correctly aligned thetent with the narrowest part facing the wind but has it backwards. Theentrance should be facing northeast and not southwest. He either didn’t knowany better or was too tired to turn the tent around when he saw his mistake. With nine experienced campers, one would think at least one would noticethe mistake and correct it. Yet none did. It’s possible that none of themknew how to do this or they were just too tired to care. At the very least they were in for a rough night. The previous “surprisinglycomfortable” night of before was not to be repeated here. The canvass of thetent would be whipping in the wind and there would be a bitter cold (-20degree F) draft in the tent at the front entrance. The women had previouslystitched up the wind leaks before but, tonight, they would be so bad Igorstuffed his own ski jacket into the tent entrance to stop the draft. And the nineoccupants inside would not be talking about love or a cure for cancer. Theywould be listening to the wind and it would be drafty inside the tent. Theymight even have been talking about abominable “snowmen”. Although,previously, no one wanted to sleep in the front section of the tent due to theheat of the stove, there were likely two members volunteering to do sotonight and for that very reason and who were now grateful for the extrawarmth.They had, or should have, taken just enough wood with them to cook dinner(Any more wood would be excess weight to carry while sidestepping theslope.). After hurriedly setting up the stove (a 1.5 hour process), they lit itand cooked dinner inside the tent, the same as the night before. This had to bedone with the stove as only the stove could have boiled water this fast. Atsome point, probably a little after 7:00 PM, the stove fire was put out and the

smoke stack that vented it outside was removed. Although this also wouldhave required 1.5 hours to do (8:30 PM or later), this allowed for a tighterseal of the entry flap as the stove pipe venting out of it would have created anadditional draft. The stove was eventually taken down but would haveremained hot for hours (as it had the night before), enough to at least warmthe front of the tent while Igor’s jacket stuffed into the entrance helped withthe draft. Because they didn’t know how far north they were in the low visibilityweather, their plan was to monitor the weather outside, even in the dark, incase there was break in the visibility to get a fix on Hill 611 in order tocalculate their position on Hill 1096. Although there was no moon that night,the white of the snow allowed for adequate visibility even in the darkprovided the overcast cleared.This monitoring for Hill 611 would have been done by having someone standoutside the tent in the dark and watch for a break in the weather and look forHill 611. If they could see Hill 611 and take its compass bearing, a reversebearing against their map would show them where they were on Hill 1096. This would be useful to know if they had to set out in the morning once againin zero visibility. Being one mile away from the west turn in the pass, theyshould reach it in less than an hour and so would know when to be alert forthe slope of Hill 1096 to go from up to down. They were likely taking turns standing outside the tent for an hour at a time(They had done this before in watching their gear against thieves.). Nickseems to have drawn the current watch for a break in the visibility based onhis wearing full ski gear (including having gloves in his right pocket). Anyone on watch outside the tent who saw Hill 611 during a break in theweather was to go inside and wake up Zolotarev and inform him of it. This isbecause Zolotarev was not only the only person dressed inside the tent inappropriate clothing to be so woken up and go out but also because he wasthe only one with a compass and flashlight, the necessary requirements totaking a bearing on Hill 611. The two would then go outside together, theone holding the map for Zolotarev while he aligned his compass on it in onehand and held his flashlight in the other to light up the map and compass. The map would then be rotated to face magnetic north and Zolotarev wouldnote the number of compass degrees (northeast) to Hill 611. Tracing the

reverse angle back from Hill 611 to Hill 1096 and comparing where itintersected their course from Hill 663 earlier would give a very closeapproximation of their position.Again, navigationally, the party is on safe ground. If this bearing was takenthen there could be absolute zero visibility in the morning (always apossibility) and they would know where they were and where they weregoing. Whatever else one can say, they were not lost.Yet, so far, there had been no break in the weather at all. It was still blowingand snowing very heavily. Camping out in the open, exposed to mountainpass winds, is always unpleasant. Anyone wanting a pleasurable night’ssleep was unlikely to get it here what with the wind threatening to blow downthe tent (Although the tent was carefully sited to avoid this.).Thus, nerves were likely on edge inside the tent with the howling windbuffeting the tent from outside. Normally, everyone took a turn at writing theday’s events in their team diary and tonight it was Zolotarev’s turn. However, he made no mention of their compass course crossing, their beingcamped on an exposed slope, the conditions, or how Rustik’s jacket caughtfire the night before. All of these things could cause them to not be acceptedas “Level 3” hikers. It had to be kept out of the group diary. Instead whenZolotarev took up the pen and diary it was to write a different account of theday’s events. He penned what he called the Otorten Evening News. It turnedout to be a humorous piece and he read it aloud to the others as he composedit. It was likely intended to ease their minds of the miserable conditionsaround them (And who knows what they might have photographed earlier.). Zolotarev was experienced in facing bad situations from the War and knewthe best way to break tension was with humor. It was written as a mocknewspaper and dated February 1, issue 1. Among the articles in the“newspaper” was one article about keeping nine hikers warm with one stoveand one blanket (suggesting that’s what they were then doing) and anannouncement for “Love and Hiking”, a daily seminar by “Dr. Kolya” (Zina)who always wanted to talk about love, and he named Luda as his “Candidateof Science” for her level head (Which was to be proven in the hours tocome.). The stove jokes continued with an article on Doroshenko andKolmogorova setting a world record for stove assembly, an indication theywere the two who set it up today as it was supposed to be the news for that

day of February 1. Indeed! The evidence is that Doroshenko was sitting inthe stove compartment warming himself by it even as this was being written.While anyone reading this would think they were having a good time – No. They were not. There were nine terrified people in that tent, one trying totake their minds off of what was going on outside with humor. Yet twoothers had found another way to deal with the situation. Two flasks of“medicinal” alcohol were produced, both previously unknown to exist (BothZina and Yuri Yudin had complained about this before they left.). But it isknown that two members of the group had failed to unpack their packsaboard the train for inspection the night they left. One flask was traced toYuri Kri. The other likely belonged to Igor as he seems to have drank themost of anyone and by at least twice as much. And alcohol does things to the bladder. It was getting time to go to bed andSlobodin and Kolevatov were about to go outside and empty theirs. The gruesome hands of Death were but moments away from reaching out andtouching them all.

FEBRUARY 26, 1959The Mountain of the Dead

The four men on skis side stepped their way up the snow covered Hill 1096from the southwest to approach a couple of standing upright skis and apartially collapsed canvas tent. Three of them were dressed in blackishbrown and one in nearly all white. The man on the far right wore a dark foxfur hat and the one next to him a gray hood. The man in all white carried arifle by a sling and a pair of binoculars.The three men in dark were Mikhail Sharavon, Boris Slobcov, andBrusnitsyn, all from the Polytechnic Institute. When the Dyatlov party wenteight days overdue, the school sent nine volunteer searchers on February 20to find them. Once they arrived and saw the situation, they called in acivilian helicopter and were taken to Mt. Otorten, climbing it on the 23rd, andsearching it on the 24th but finding nothing. They climbed back down theway they came on the 25th. That same day, their helicopter navigator reportedsighting a tent “in rags” on the east face of Hill 1096, the “Mountain ofDeath”.As their guide had told them to search this very area two days ago, they tookhim along. He was Anton Sergei. Anton Sergei watched the university students look over the collapsed tent. He did not know those who they were looking for but, with four perfectlygood skis and six ski poles showing in the snow to stake the tent, he guessedthey had found them.“This is Igor’s tent,” said Boris Slobcov. “I helped him make it three yearsago.”Anton had no idea who Igor was as Brusnitsyn used his camera to take apicture of the other two men studying the tent. The photo was to preserve theundisturbed site as they found it for later study if it should be necessary. Otherwise, these men would soon have footprints all over it.He waited.

With the collapsed tent’s canvass sagging under snow, the other two studentsexpected to find the frozen bodies of the nine Dyatlov party members inside.Anton expected it also as it was obvious no one had retied the tent after itcollapsed. It reasoned they were all dead inside, frozen to death the same asthe nine Mansi hunters who tried tenting here a few years ago. They foundthe east side of the tent roof torn open and so looked in by that means.“There’s no one in it,” reported Sharavan. “They could still be alive.”Maybe, thought Anton. Not finding them dead was always a good sign.

This photo was taken from the front of the tent and from the left. To help orient the reader, the upsidedown ski pole (top center left) is actually a tent stake for the right rear corner of the tent. The standingski in the middle of the photo is not the rear tent support (That would be just off the picture to the left.). The standing ski shown is actually positioned just to the right side of the tent and had the grommet ropetied to it to support the middle of the tent. The rope that should be tied to it is completely untied andnot visible. Likewise, the rope that should be tied to the rear tent ski is also not visible. It too iscompletely untied and the reason the tent is collapsed. The front ski (also not pictured) is still standing

and still tied because one can see the rope leading to it dangling from the front of the tent. The front tent flap appears closed although below the snowline it was said to be open. Either way,the stove pipe is not in place as it would have exited the entrance and be readily seen.

Anton was considered a professional tracker. He was often hired by localCaptain A. A. Chernischev of the Soviet military to hunt down escapedprisoners. But mostly he made his living by speaking and trading with theMansi who did not speak Russian and didn’t want to learn. If they wanted totrade with a Whiteman it had to be him as virtually no one else could speaktheir language. He was also the only one the Soviet soldiers could hire as atranslator if they wanted to deal with them. Between the two, speakingMansi paid well. And, like the Mansi, the Communist Party pretty much lefthim alone. He had seen enough political prisoners here in the gulags to knowhe wanted no part of them.As one of two guides hired by the university students in Sverdlovsk at thesuggestion of one of the locals to track down nine lost student tourists, Antonhad been brought along on this search here today as he had been calling for itall along. They were standing now high up on a slope overlooking the southentrance of the pass to Mount Otorten and on the west side of it. But even Anton was surprised to find their tent here. He had expected it inthis pass – Yes - but not here. They were still ten miles away from Otortenand yet, rather than camp in the protected trees at Hill 611 on the other sideof the pass, they had pitched their tent out here on this open slope. Anton hadcertainly not anticipated them doing this. No wonder they were missing. These students were either obvious amateurs or desperate as he could think ofno other explanation to set a tent up here.“I wonder why they camped here on this slope,” Sharavan noted theirobvious common thought. “There’s no protection and no firewood.”Which was exactly what Anton was thinking. But he said nothing. Instead,he noticed someone had urinated a short distance from the front of the tent. He saw no sign anyone else had. The hikers had probably left the tent withinjust hours of setting it up for that to happen or there would be many moresuch signs. There was also a Chinese flashlight on the top entrance of thetent. He knew what that was for. Anyone getting up in the middle of the

night to relieve themselves would exit the front of the tent, pick up theflashlight, and use it to go about their business. When they were done, theywould return the flashlight to the top of the tent for the next person. Thatway, nobody had to turn a flashlight on inside the tent and wake up everyoneelse in going out and anyone going out knew where to find it withoutsearching for it. They simply pulled on an extra pair of socks in the dark andwent out. And, when they were done, simply took the extra pair of socks offwhen they came back in again.Whoever put that flashlight there had obviously done some camping. Andwhoever had pitched the tent had leveled the foundation quite expertly, thesidewalls of the tent being perfectly flush with the height of the snow. Heeven knew how to use ski poles for tent stakes and skis for both tent polesand a tent floor and all were still in place.Anton picked the flashlight up and tried the batteries. It still worked. Henoticed there was no snow on it now but there had been snow under it.Another thing he noticed. The snow had drifted deepest towards the front ofthe tent. It meant the entrance had been facing the prevailing wind. With theflap closed only by buttons and a felt liner, it meant wind would have enteredthe tent, especially if someone exited to go outside. Whoever had set this tentup had either faced it in the wrong direction or the wind had changed 180degrees since.That the tent had been set up wrong was supported by the fact that the ropetied to the rear ski “tent pole” was no longer tied to it. It was an amateurmistake as it meant the person had failed to tie the rope properly. Likewisethe rope to the grommet ski had also come completely undone. Someone hadtied two incorrect knots.They had enough experience to make the trip but still enough inexperience tomake mistakes such as siting their tent on an exposed slope with faulty knotsand possibly facing the wind. It also looked like they’d gotten themselveslost for they were on the wrong side of the pass to get to Mount Otorten. Oh! They were on the right side if they wanted to take the shortest route but,if they wanted to be out of the wind with firewood they’d be on the other sideat Hill 611. Lost in bad weather was the only excuse to stop here.“They left all their gear inside,” said Boris, looking in through the torn roof

of the tent. “Anton! Have a look! Tell us what you think.”Anton stepped around to join them. There was, indeed, a large hole ripped inthe east side of the tent roof.“They must have abandoned the tent when the wind ripped it open,”suggested Sharavan as Anton had a look.The tent was unusual in that it was actually two tents sewn together, theentrance to the second tent in the middle divided it into two partitions, eachhalf being about 40 square feet. It had collapsed when the rope to its rear ski“tent pole” had come loose as well as the grommet rope. Anton rememberedthere were two women among the tourists and the division was likely fortheir privacy. Boris was right when he said they had left their gear inside. Itwas full of bedding and empty backpacks which had been properly laid outon the floor to insulate them from the snow beneath the tent. Likewise, theirboots were set in the corners for the same reason. It was all correctly laidout. Bread and oatmeal were neatly stacked in one corner and an axe and asaw were near the entrance. But a trained eye doesn’t notice that. Anton waslooking first for things that should be in the tent but weren’t and, second, forthings in the tent that shouldn’t be there but were.It seems he wasn’t very good at finding the first. He saw nothing missing.But he did see things that shouldn’t be there.“They were eating,” he said, pointing to sliced ham on a cloth. “Cannedham,” he said. “They were having dinner. They never finished it or cleanedup.”He directed their attention to the boots.“They left their valenkis,” he noted. “They must be in their tent shoes.”Boris nodded in agreement.Anton pointed now to the middle of the tent.“What is that?” he wanted to know of a metal cylinder in a canvas bag.“That’s Igor Dyatlov’s wood stove,” answered Boris. “He made it himself.”“He had a wood stove inside a tent?”“He had a smoke stack to vent the smoke out.”

He had heard three of the students were engineers. Leave it to them to createthis. They had obviously used it though. Something had heated up the hamand there was a frozen cup of cocoa by the stove as if to be reheated.“I don’t see it,” he said of the smoke stack.“It will be in there somewhere. It may have fallen off outside and be buriedunder the snow. They obviously did not assemble it here.”Anton nodded and then pointed again.“The tent entrance faced the wind,” he said. “They stuffed a ski jacket intothe entrance to cut the draft.”“That is Igor Dyatlov’s jacket.”Anton wondered how they got out through the entrance while still leaving theparka in place. They must have come out through the tear he was lookingthrough. It meant the tear existed at the time they left and did not occurafterwards.“Look!” said one. “Someone tried to cut this ski pole!”It was lying outside the tent as he held it up for them to see.Someone had, indeed, whittled on it with a knife. That would have been along, slow process. Dry bamboo is very hard to cut and even a big knife willonly cut off a toothpick thin slice at a time. However, why anyone wouldwant to ruin a perfectly good ski pole was of no interest to Anton. His eyewas elsewhere.“They left their galoshes too,” he noted.It was true. There were several pairs of galoshes inside the tent, six pairneatly lined up on one wall and a few more pair here at the east wall. “Does that mean anything?” asked Sharavan.Anton did not quickly answer. That was hard to say. Galoshes just keep thefeet dry in wet weather or melting snow. They offer very little insulationagainst the cold. He decided it did not mean much. They had simply leftthem behind like everything else.“It means when they left the snow was not wet,” he finally decided.He now checked under the floor of the tent. There were numerous pairs of

skis laid out and all facing southeast. This was normal when laying out a tentin snow as it reduced the tent floor’s contact with the chilling cold beneath. But it was unusual for something else.“They left their skis.”That meant they were on foot.His eye continued to look over the interior of the tent. He saw two metalflasks. He picked one up and opened it, smelled it, and then took a sip.“Vodka,” he said. “They were drinking.”“What else?”What else was wrong was quite obvious. The tent was torn. Canvass doesn’tnormally tear – especially in a straight line. The others thought the wind hadtorn the tent roof. True, the tent was exposed to such winds but they werewrong.“Someone cut this tent open with a knife,” he said. “The wind did it,” they still insisted.No. There was no chance of that. Anton pointed to the upper left handcorner of the tent to a short, horizontal slit.

“Did the wind do this?” he challenged and then pointed to a much longer,similar slit to the right of it made in at least three cuts. “Or that?”

The cuts were made in a series of slices 40 cm long. If made in a single cut,that would require a really, really big knife, possibly up to a 16 inch blade,depending upon how sharp it was. A smaller one could have done it but onlyby sawing and which produces a more ragged cut. It looked like a long bladehad done this to him.

Neither man argued with him.Then there was the fact that the fourth cut was the longest by far and went allthe way to the partition in the middle of the tent. That was a very sharp knife.“They came out,” he said, “through these cuts.”He explained that was how the entrance could still be stuffed with a parkaafter they left.“What do you mean, ‘they came out’?” demanded Boris. “You meansomeone cut their way in, don’t you?”“Who is ‘someone’?” requested Anton.“Whoever it was that came for them! No one would cut their way out of atent when all they have to do is unbutton the front flap!”

“No one came for them.”“How do you know that?”“It was dark. They had finished dinner,” answered Anton. “Their stove isinside, not outside. No one would see their fire. It took a helicopter to findthis tent by daylight. Do not expect anyone to have found them here in thedark or even be out in the night on this hill with them."The three students did not accept that explanation.“They didn’t cut it themselves! And it may not have been night. They mayhave put off cleaning up after dinner until the next morning,” counteredSharavan. “Someone might have seen the tent then and cut it before theywoke up or followed them the day before, waited for them to set up camp,and then waited until dark to cut their way in.”“They might have,” agreed Anton. “But why make this little cut down here ifthey’re trying to cut their way in? You can’t get in through that.”

Anton had his reasons for doubting them. Someone had cut two horizontalslashes in the front half of the tent, one short and the other very long. Thelong cut ended at where the tent was partitioned. Whoever did that knew thetent was partitioned. Only someone inside the tent would know that. Whoever did it had made these cuts from inside the front half of the tent. “The people inside,” he repeated with certainty, “came out through this cut.”He pointed to the long slashing cut as the way out.“No one would do that!” Boris insistently repeated. “Who would cut theirway out with the tent still standing?”“And someone came along afterwards, cut the tent open in two or threeplaces,” Anton challenged, “and took nothing?”

The university students were at an impasse.“We don’t know what they took! But let’s assume you’re wrong. Whowould cut into the tent to take them out?” Sharavan wanted to know. “Mansi? Escaped prisoners?”Anton did not know how to answer that. Mansi could probably do anything. They had been Christianized but were a tribal people and, therefore,unpredictable. Except for a woman geologist they had killed in the 1930’sthough, the Mansi hadn’t attacked anyone for nearly 200 years and even backthen it was for Whites burning land. These hikers weren’t burning land. Andthe woman had been killed for trespassing on sacred ground but this was notsacred ground. Mansi had no use for this place. In fact, there were ghostshere to them. They called this the Mountain of the Dead for the nine Mansimen that died here a few years back. And the nearest Mansi village was 60miles away for them to even find this tent although they hunted the area. Asfor escaped prisoners, they would have robbed the tent of the boots andparkas and not left it like this. There was no evidence anyone had cut theirway in. Yet, obviously, something had happened here. And, whatever it was, it was out of the ordinary. For those in the tent to havecut their way out, there being no evidence of anyone cutting their way in,meant something was inside the tent blocking the entrance for them to getout. So they had to cut their way out. It was why the parka was still stuffedinto the entrance. They hadn’t used it.Eventually, the four of them were all in agreement that those inside hadexited by the cut roof. They disagreed only on who cut it.But it was an unthinkable idea to mention something was inside the tent withthem in front of educated men. He could see the flaw in his logic himself. The knife cuts were made so close to the entrance that whoever made themhad to be standing right next to whatever was blocking the way out.The knife should have been used on it and not on the roof.And, whatever it was that was blocking the way, it had left no tracks.So – No. He made no mention to the others what he thought. Instead, helooked for a resolution to their logic that someone had cut their way in.“There’s one way to tell if they were taken captive or not,” he offered.

“How is that?”“Count their footprints.”“Footprints? What footprints?”Anton pointed east about twenty meters.“They’re over there and headed northwest.”

Above, Boris Slobcov and Michail Sharavan look northeast in the direction of the tracks heading northand which can be seen in the background. The ski on the left is the one used as a tent pole by theperson in the February 1 camp setup photo. It can’t be seen in the previous photo. The ski on theright, used to tie the grommet rope, shows the old fashioned ski bindings; leather sandal loop top witha leather belt buckle strap hanging down. Notice again how there’s no rope tied to it and also how theprevailing wind has drifted snow in front of the tent entrance (The tent is facing southwest.). Noticealso none of the skis and poles are angled downhill to the right; an indication of no avalanche.

The two students stood up to look where he pointed. There was nothing butsome ridges on top of the snow out there.“Those are footprints?” Asked Boris. “They’re on top of the snow! Shouldn’t they be indented?”“They were once the same as ours are now,” explained Anton. “But wherewe step we also compress the snow underfoot into a hard formation. The restof the snow around our prints can melt or blow away but the compressedsnow under the footsteps will remain the longest until they either melt or arecovered by the next snowfall. By the drift in front of the tent entrance I’d saythere’s been lots of wind here since and it blew away the snow above theirtracks.” His eye looked over the tent site then and he added, “They musthave been caught in poor visibility to set up tent here. They obviouslycouldn’t see Hill 611.”“Can we follow the tracks to find them?”“Maybe,” replied Anton. “But it was snowing the night they left. They werein bad weather here. They should not have camped here in the open. Thosetracks,” he pointed, “head northwest. Maybe if they don’t head downhill wemight be able to follow them. But, if they head downhill, the further onegoes downhill on a mountain side out here, the more it snows and there is lesswind to blow the snow away, allowing it to cover their tracks. So we couldlose them. If they stayed on that course, we’ll have to get lucky. A milefrom here that slope runs downhill. But even if we lose their trail I will stillbe able to count how many of them left here.”“How do you know it was snowing when they left?” asked Brusnitsyn.“There is a flashlight set on the tent,” he replied. “It had no snow on it butthere was snow underneath. The last person to use it set it down on fallingsnow. So it was snowing when he came out and it possibly still was whenthey left.”“But there was no snow on top of the flashlight?” Boris wanted to know.“No.” Anton answered. “It had either stopped snowing by then or the windblew it off the flashlight since. Either way, they were in bad weather whenthey set up this tent.”

“You think the tent collapsed from the snow while they were in it?”“Maybe.”Whoever set up this tent had done it both right and wrong. In some waysthey knew what they were doing but, in others, not. Whoever tied those twoski knots was incapable of tying their own shoelaces. They could have comeundone with the weight of the snow on the roof and the tent then collapsed. It had a middle grommet rope to keep it from collecting snow and getting tooheavy but that was one of the ropes that had come undone. The weight of thesnow might have pulled it loose. The incorrect knots may have also comeundone though from all the shaking and shuddering of the tent from its beingcut open too.He questioned the judgment of the skiers’ in siting the tent altogether on anexposed slope and with the entrance facing the wrong direction. It waspossible whoever set the tent up this high on the hill did so deliberately tostay above the heavier snow that might otherwise bury or collapse the tent. And it was also possible the prevailing wind changed direction after the tententrance was set up. It was hard to say. Yet for two tent ropes to comeundone was the work of amateurs.“Yesterday, the helicopter could see these tears in the tent,” offeredSharavan. “He said it was in rags. It must have been standing when theyflew over to see the tears.”“And maybe their chopper blades blew it down when they got too close,”mused Slobcov. “Let’s see where their tracks go.”The students now headed over to the “tracks” to have a look at them forthemselves.“Wait!” warned Anton, quickly stopping them. “Let me try and read themfirst before you go near them.”They waited for him to catch up and have a look. While he examined them,Michail and Boris sent Brusnitsyn back to their base camp to report theirdiscovery to the helicopter pilot who had a radio.Anton took his time. There were many prints which made it very hard toread. The footprints in the snow were unusual to the students too that hadhired him because the prints were actually higher than the snow around

them. Looking at snow blown prints is funny business because they’rebasically elevated. The top snow of the tracks had disappeared by the wind,leaving only the compressed bottom of the track. The footprints looked likeraised pancakes on the snow. But once you come to understand that you canget an idea of what you’re looking at for the prints were very clear.

Anton studied them for a long time. The compressed prints being actuallyhigher than the snow around them made somewhat easier to understand.“The snow was deeper then than it is now,” he observed. “And by quite abit.”If the tent was properly leveled as it was now, a lot of snow had fallenbetween when they first set up the tent and when these prints were made. The three of them were likely standing in about the same depth of snow aswhen the tent was pitched. Yet these footprints had been made inconsiderably much deeper snow than this when they left. It had snowedplenty either while, or after, the tent had been set up. That extra snow thoughhad all since been blown away and even then some.He looked for further evidence of deep snow.

“Their tracks are closely spaced together for power,” he added. “They wereeither facing a strong wind or, as I said, the snow was deep.”“How deep?”“Almost a foot deeper than this,” he replied.“That’s a lot of snow to fall in one night,” said Slobcov.Yes. It was. That assumed, of course, they only camped here one night. They may havegotten stuck here in low visibility for days, another reason to camp higher upin order to see Hill 611 and get their bearings. The extra amount of snow might also explain why they camped so high. They were fairly high up in the pass, probably between 800-900 meters. Thatwas a good elevation to avoid snow. The higher one goes up, the less itsnows. Most people don’t know that and believe, when they see a whitecapped mountain, that it snows a lot up there. No. It does not. It actuallysnows less. There is less water vapor up that high to turn into snow. It justdoesn’t melt when it does snow and that’s why you see it so long afterwards.It’s too cold up there to melt it. It’s the lower elevations just below that getthe most snow – Lots more – as the warmer air holds more water. You cancamp above it if you want to escape it but that means more wind and morecold. Pick your poison. Most people pick the snow. But these people chosethe wind and the cold. To have an extra foot here it must have been snowingeven heavier in the lower regions below. That would have been quite a lot ofsnow. They were in a blizzard.Sometimes not camping in heavy snow was important in a severe snowstorm. If the tent was completely covered by snow everyone inside wouldsuffocate in about 18 minutes, quite possibly in their sleep. That obviouslyhadn’t happened here in only a foot of snow but it might have if they hadcamped lower.Finally, the weight of that much extra foot of snow on the roof may havecaused the two tent knots to come undone. Although, if that happened, thesolution to a foot of snow on the tent causing it to fall down wasn’t to cut ahole in the roof. That just lets the snow in. The solution was to go outsidethrough the entrance and simply clear the snow off, set it back up, and retie

it. An extra foot of snow would not have prevented them from using the stillstanding entrance. Even if the snow had drifted against the entrance it couldbe easily dug out. No. There was only one reason to cut their way out and italways came back to the same thing.Something was blocking the entrance.If asked, that’s what he would say. Avalanche was the obvious first thoughtof what was blocking it but, looking around, there was no evidence of it. Thesnow was only a foot deeper then than now. That was a mighty smallavalanche.But they weren’t asking and he was not offering. And they were friends ofthe hikers. Suggestions the hikers had made mistakes would not bewelcome. So he dutifully followed their line of reasoning. He was on theirtime and their money and they paid well. The tent might have collapsed fromthe weight of the snow but, if it did, it didn’t pull the skis down acting as tentpoles. It simply pulled the knots loose. Anyone using the tent flashlightcould have retied them back up again. It more likely collapsed after they left. Possibly like they said, when the helicopter flew over it. That would, indeed,explain how they saw it in rags.But his focus now was on the footprints leading away to the north. Theywanted his expert opinion on them and he gave it.“Some of the tracks are smaller than the others,” he pointed out.“The women,” said Sharavan.Could be.“They left in an orderly fashion but don’t have shoes,” he observed next. “They’re wearing socks. Only this one here was wearing valenki boots andthen only on one foot.”The urine outside the tent told him why the person was only wearing oneboot. He was pulling the other one off after coming back in from going outto urinate when something suddenly happened that caused them to quitehurriedly cut their way out of the tent and leave. For this person, andeveryone else, things had to have happened very fast here – In the time totake off one boot. There was not even enough time to pull it back on.

“You’re sure they’re not wearing tent shoes?” asked Sharavan.Snow campers usually carry two sets of shoes, one pair for inside the tent andone set for outside. For outside they wear rubber galoshes and valenkis. Inside, they wear a softer, lighter pair for sleeping, often called a burka.“No,” he stated in answer. “You can see their toe marks,” he said, pointing toone such print. “But you can find out for certain by checking the tent to seeif they left them behind or not while I count these. Otherwise, I believe theyare all only wearing socks.”The two students went back to check on that while Anton continued to studythe prints. By the length of their stride they were trudging, not running, twopeople off to one side and the rest together. They left in miserableconditions, with the wind likely at their backs judging by the prevailing driftsand deep snow. Someone had brought up the rear. No one ever stepped in hisfootprints but he did in others. He was a tall man by his shoe size. And now, the most important thing, how many were there?The students were coming back.“You’re right,” Boris said. “We found their tent shoes in the back of thetent. With their valenkis, galoshes, and most of their clothing still in the tent,they’re just in socks.”“What are we looking at?” Sharavan wanted to know. “Who would leave inonly their socks? They must have been taken prisoners!”It was not uncommon for campers to go outside their tent in just their socksto urinate and then go back in again. But to actually leave in them? No. Sharavan’s disbelief was well founded.“Someone in a huge hurry,” answered Anton, thinking of the one who hadtime to remove only valenki. “I count eight tracks leaving.”“There were nine of them.”He was pretty sure he had only counted eight.“There could be nine,” he decided. It was possible.Even if it was nine, it meant they had not been taken prisoners. They allunderstood that there would be ten or more sets of prints if that were the case.

“They left the tent, after dinner, in a snow storm, without shoes, by cuttingtheir way out?” was the astonished question. “What would cause them to dothat?”“Avalanche,” said the other student.It did seem the logical explanation. Anton had already considered that whenhe first saw the tent collapsed and the extra foot of snow they left in. But thetent hadn’t been moved and the skis used as tent poles were still in place aswell as the ski poles used as tent stakes. Nothing was out of tilt. If there wasan avalanche here it not only moved nothing of the campsite itself but thewind blew it away entirely afterwards.“Where would an avalanche come from?” challenged Sharavan of the other. “This isn’t steep enough and they’re too high up on the hill.”Anton nodded. Sharavan was right. The slope was about 19 degrees, notenough for an avalanche. Wind and snow came through here - Yes. But noavalanche.Yet they still left in just their socks. It must have been out of desperation forthem to do that.And they had also left without their skis, the slowest means possible toleave. There was no time to put them on, just as there was no time to put ontheir valenkis. They left in a hurry.Anton checked the still standing skis. They were old fashioned with no toe orheel clamps so you could put your feet in them with just socks. And yet theyhad moved off on nearly level ground without them, the second best use for aski other than downhill. Again it indicated hurry. Although those under thetent floor would have been under a foot of snow at the time, it would havetaken that long to dig them out and yet they had not done so. They had leftthem all. No gloves, he realized. Without gloves and mittens on it was too cold ontheir hands to dig out the snow to reach the skis. It was another sign ofhurry. Time was of the essence.Anton wanted to conclude the reason for leaving them was they didn’t plan togo very far but that was contradicted by the obvious fact that they had notcome back. Further, there was no nearby shelter to head to – At least not in

the direction they were headed. They could have gone for a mile in thatdirection and not only reached nothing but not even being close to reachinganything even when they got there. Traveling in socks at night, even just amile, was too far. Looking in the direction the tracks were headed he didn’tsee any destination at all, let alone a nearby one. The direction they left inled the way to Mount Otorten and that was ten miles away. They’d nevermake it in socks.It was becoming increasingly obvious that these people had abandoned theirtent and their campsite in the shortest possible time. And he wasn’t the onlyone now with that thought.“Maybe they thought there was going to be an avalanche?” he heard someonesuggest. Nods passed around like colds.Yes. That was a possibility. It did look that way. It seemed something hadspooked them into sudden leaving. But people don’t cut their way out of atent instead of using the entrance just because they “think” there might be anavalanche. And, if they wanted to cover distance fast to escape one, they’dhave done so on skis. It wouldn’t have taken them that long to dig them outto put them on even in their socks although their hands might have been toonumb from digging snow to belt their skis on afterwards. Yet panickedpeople would still try to put them on. And, if they were that panicked as toleave their skis, then they should have been running. Yet while they did usespeed to get out of the tent, they did not exit it in panic and run in separatedirections. In fact, they didn’t run at all. The first person out had stood byand waited for the last person to get out and then they had all left together. They left as an organized unit which discounted threat of an avalanche. Theyhad trudged but not ran. They obviously didn’t plan to be gone long either orthey wouldn’t just be wearing socks. So where were they and why hadn’tthey come back?It was all too contradictory. If they planned to leave a short distance theyshould have come back. And, if they planned to go a short distance, the lastdirection they would go was northwest. Northwest was sheer madness. It didnot lead to safety. It led to more of this. It made no sense. To head that way

in socks was certain suicide.The only thing he was certain of was that these campers were motivated by acommon desperation. Again something was in the tent with them; somethingblocking the way out the front flap, something that caused them todesperately cut their way out and then walk away from it into nowhere,leaving everything behind including packs, skis, and shoes and not comingback. They would not even dare reach back into the tent for their boots.But where was the proof that something was in the tent with them? Whatcould it be?What had happened here?

FEBRUARY 1 9:00 PMFive Hours to Live

Sudden activity started inside the tent. It beganwith Yuri Kri and YuriDoroshenko, both in the front section of the tent and trying to get away fromsomething, as they raised the alarm. A flashlight came on inside the tent andZolotarev went forward with it into the front half of the tent. For a momenthe was silent and then called back.“Igor! You need to see this.”Igor Dyatlov moved forward immediately into the front section of the tent toconfront the problem with him. It was hard to see but Igor found Rustik wasalready there with only one of his valenki boots on, apparently having takenthe other off on coming back in from outside.“What is that? What’s wrong?!” called Zina from the back of the tent.“Get it out!” Cried both Yuri’s. “Put it out!”“I can do it! I can do it,” Igor assured all. “Not to panic.”Igor tried to do so but without success.“I can’t get close to it. It won’t let me.”“Maybe if you use your mittens?” suggested Zolotarev.The others in the back were now noticing too.“What’s going on?” demanded Zina again. “What’s happening up there?”“Get it out!” said Doroshenko. “It will kill us!”“Do you want to try?!” retorted Igor.“I’m not touching that thing!”“It’s getting worse back here!” cried Luda. “Do something! We can’t stay inhere!”“It will kill us!” repeated Doroshenko. “We’ll die in here!”“We have to do something!” agreed Zolotarev. “Maybe we can find someway to let it out.”

“I’m trying!” Igor replied. “But it won’t go out! The wind is keeping it in. Kri! Use your knife! Cut a hole in the tent! See if that will let it out!”A knife began to punch repeatedly at the canvass before the tip finally cutthrough the middle of the roof of the tent near the front at about the snowline.“No! No! Higher up!” instructed Igor when he saw where the cut was. “Ashigh as you can! That should let it out!”The knife immediately withdrew and then moved higher to the top southeastcorner and began to cut from there backwards and north about 40centimeters.“Let me out! I can’t stand it!” screamed Luda. “It’s killing me!”“Cut more! It’s not enough!”The knife returned and cut another 40 centimeter slit just behind the first inthe same direction. Everyone was yelling now, Zinaida Kolmogorova, Luda Dubinina, RustikSlobodin, Kolevatov, Doroshenkp, and Zolotarev – All except NicolaiThibeaux-Brignolles who was already outside the tent . It had turned into fullscale panic. It sounded to Nick like someone had a thrown a live rattlesnakeinside the tent.

“It’s still not enough!” called Igor.The knife cut again, making an identical cut. 120 centimeters had been cutback but it still wasn’t enough to let it out. “I can’t stand it!” babbled Zina. “We’ll all die in here! It’s going to kill us! Igor! Do something!”Igor took the knife for himself. Kri was cutting too gingerly for those trappedin the back. They needed a much bigger hole than this. The knife now cut one long slash through the roof of the tent all the way tothe tent divider, the slash now diagonal and downwards. He then handed Kriback the knife.“Everyone out!” he ordered. “Kri! Cut a way out for the women in theback. Everyone else out the front roof!”“Put it out! Put it out!” repeated Luda in desperation. “I can’t stand it!”

Doroshenko was first to exit by the cut, the others lining up behind him.Kolevatov was next followed by Zolotarev and then Rustik, abandoning Kriand the two women in the back. Igor could have exited behind them butchose not to. He had to see to those in the back, especially Zina.“Not to panic! Not to panic!” he told them as he entered the back of the tent. “Kri! Have you cut a way out yet? We’re trapped in here!”Yuri Kri was in the very back of the tent with the knife cutting another slit inthe tent roof, only this time a vertical one which was much easier to exit andwith less damage.“The women out first!” ordered Igor, overseeing that section’s evacuationThat didn’t happen. Kri was first out the moment he finished cutting thehole. He had been in there long enough. But, with Kri leaving first, Zina hadtime to grab her hat against the cold before she followed, giving Luda behindher enough time to grab not only her fur hat but also her coat before exitingthe cut behind Zina. Igor was the last to leave, grabbing his own heavy furcoat on the way. They were the only ones to do so.Then everyone tumbled out onto the snow, gasping thankfully just to bealive.No one noticed the cold for they were all still warm from the stove, thecommunity blanket, the alcohol, and now the adrenalin. They were justthankful they had all managed to get out. They might have died in there. Ithad also finally stopped snowing. It had been coming down quite heavilybefore.“I didn’t think I’d ever get out of there!” breathed Luda as they now got up tostand around the tent in the snow, still shaking from the experience.Yuri Kri and Yuri Doroshenko, being the lightest dressed, now begannoticing the bitter cold. They tried to reach inside the tent for their coats butit wouldn’t them in or even near their gear.“We might still die out here,” replied Alexander Zolotarev of the cold.He knew from experience. This was not a good time or place to be rightnow.“What will we do?” asked Yuri Doroshenko, already shivering.

“It will go out,” Igor assured them. “We just have wait for it to do so.”“We could freeze out here by then!” exclaimed Kri.“Don’t blame me,” said Igor. “It was Rustik’s fault!”“My fault?!” countered Rustik Slobodin. “How was it my fault? You’re theone who told Yuri to cut the tent!”“Arguing won’t get us anywhere!” Zolotarev interrupted them by shoutingover the wind. “That,” he gazed towards the tent, “has to go out sometime. We just wait here until it does.”“But Kri and I have nothing to wear,” argued Doroshenko. “It’s too cold tojust stand out here!”“He’s right,” warned Luda. “We could all freeze here waiting for it to goout.”“We can try smothering it,” suggested Zolotarev.“How?” asked Yuri Doroshenko.“Untie the tent ropes and let it collapse. It should go out then.”“Yes! He’s right!” agreed Igor and he promptly untied the grommet ski ropecausing the tent to sag.Zolotarev finished the job of collapsing the tent by untying the north skipole. Except for the front entrance the entire tent now went down. Theycould easily pull both ropes up again and stand the tent back up once it wasout.And then they stood and they waited.And they waited.And waited.“It’s not going out,” said Doroshenko, who now tried to reach into the tentwith a ski pole to fish out a coat to wear.“Get one for me too!” shivered Kri.“It’s not working,” reported Doroshenko again in frustration, pulling outnothing.“Maybe if I cut off a ski pole and sharpened the end?” suggested Kri who,finding one of his poles, began whittling at it with his knife.

Yet the blade hardly made a dent on the hard bamboo.“Don’t bother,” after a while Doroshenko told him. “I tried turning the polearound and using the other end and that didn’t work either.”“So what are we going to do?” demanded Kri through chattering teeth. “Idon’t know about you but I’m freezing to death!”In answer, Doroschenko dropped the ski pole and stepped back holding hisarms wrapped tightly about himself in the cold and shivering. His reply wasno reply at all.“We have to get a fire going,” said Luda who still had a calm head.“Out here?” demanded Kolevatov in disbelief. “In this wind and snow? Andwith what? We’ve burned up all the firewood!”“We’d have to go to back to Hill 663,” said Zolotarev. “There’s firewoodthere.”“Even if we made it back to Hill 663 we’d never make it back from there tohere and the tent again afterwards without our feet freezing,” replied Igor. “Isay we go to Hill 611. It is closer and an easier travel.”“Hill 611? We can’t even see Hill 611!” argued Zolotarev. “I can at least usethe compass and my flashlight to get us back to Hill 663!”“No! No! Hill 611 is closer,” replied Igor. “It’s only a mile and it is easygoing. It’s all downhill. We can go there and make a fire while we wait forthis to go out on its own.”“How will we know when that happens?” demanded Rustik.“We’ll leave Nick here to watch it. He’s dressed for it,” replied Igor. “Hecan signal us with the tent flashlight when it’s safe to come back or we cansignal him with ours for him to find us.”“We can’t leave here without shoes and coats!” insisted Doroshenko and withwhom Kri instantly agreed.“If we don’t get you both to a fire and soon,” Luda warned them, “you’ll bothfreeze.”Kolevatov agreed.“We have to get off this slope,” he said, “and out of this wind.”“Then we better hurry before these two freeze,” said Zolotarev of the two

shivering Yuri’s. “We need to make a fire and fast!”“Where will you go?” asked Nick.He needed to know if he was to find them and Igor and Zolotarev were not inagreement on where to go. Igor wanted to head for Hill 611 while Zolotarevwanted to go back to Hill 633.“If we go to Hill 611,” argued Zolotarev, “we could get lost trying to find itand never find our way back.”“If we go to Hill 633,” countered Igor, “our feet will freeze either on the waythere or on the climb back and we’ll never get back here either.”Someone had to suggest compromise and it wasn’t going to be Igor. It endedup being Zolotarev.“We can head northwest along our original course using our compass untilwe reach the north-slope,” he offered. “Then we’ll know where we are andcan take a compass course heading from there to Hill 611.”“Northwest?” shivered Kri hesitantly. “But that’s the wrong way! The treesare east! I’ll freeze before we get there!”“How else are we to find Hill 611 in the dark?” Zolotarev asked of him.“It shouldn’t be very far north to the slope,” Igor assured Kri. “It can’t be. Besides, Zolotarev is right. We can’t get lost or we will all die. We can’t juststeer blindly east from here or we could pass south of Hill 611 and neverknow it. We have to go north to get a bearing on Hill 611. Using ourprevious compass course is the best way not to get lost. That’s what we allagreed to earlier today.”There was hardly agreement now though and the two Yuri’s clearly haddoubts. When they had agreed to it earlier today they had coats, gloves andboots. Of the nine of them, they were the two most badly dressed to be out inthe dark now. To them, going northwest was just as suicidal as Hill 663.Yet Igor was adamant.“Whatever we do, we do it together and we do it by compass. Zolotarev andI both agree to head north first and then east to Hill 611. It’s the safest planfor all.” That was true. They were all Communist Party members and Party doctrine

preached survival of the group. It left Yuri Kri and Yuri Doroschenko unableto say anything. When no one else disagreed, Igor took that as approval.He started out.“This way!” Yuri Doroshenko was the last to follow and the most reluctant. The tall manunderstood leaving the tent dressed in only tent clothes could mean possiblefrostbite or even death. Leaving the tent was to leave safety. But it was thegroup’s decision to leave and communal party thinking prevailed.Igor and Zolotarev led the way northwest for a ways with Doroshenko still inthe rear, bent over to stay warm the same as Kri who kept looking east in thedark as if his life depended on it. Suddenly, Kri stopped and pointed to theirright.“There!” he said.“There what?” requested Igor in reply.There was no moon tonight to see by.“There’s a hill! I can see it!”“He’s right. That’s Hill 611,” said Zolotarev who now also saw it. “See itagainst the skyline?”Igor looked and then nodded. He could just make it out.“We can head for it now,” Zolotarev recommended. “I can set a compasscourse on it from here. To get back here again I can just set a reversecompass course.”Yes. He was right. That was what they should do.“Everyone! We’re now going this way!” Igor told the others as Zolotarevheld up his compass and flashlight to take a heading on it.The temperature was now twenty-two degrees Fahrenheit below zero as theyset out for Hill 611. And, if things weren’t bad enough already, that’s when the batteries slowlybegan to weaken and fade on Zolotarev’s flashlight.Seeing this, Nick now left the tent to join them, afraid he’d lose themotherwise in the dark if he couldn’t see Zolotarev’s flashlight. He cut acrossthe snow northeast to join them, his own boot prints not following the first

eight tracks of the others.

FEBRUARY 26, 1959Noon

Anton Sergei followed the tracks of the student tourists in the snow after theirleaving the tent. They had not turned back south the way they had comefrom but instead were mysteriously heading northwest. That was bad. Itmeant the others searching along the river Auspi to the south would neverfind them. And heading northwest was the way to Mount Otorten. Whywould they head there without boots or a tent?And then suddenly, just as he wondering this, the footprints turned fromnorthwest to northeast. What had caused them to do this? They had reachedno landmarks when they made the turn. Were they lost?He had to stop and look around. They must have seen something.Anton looked ahead at where tracks now led and noticed they appeared tohead for Hill 611. They had left in the dark and in bad weather. It must havecleared enough for them to see the hill when they got to here.He now followed their tracks in this new direction. For a while they stayedtogether but after about 300 meters several prints split apart to both sides ofthe main group and he was now no longer sure where they were headed.Michail Sharavan followed the tracks to the left and Boris Slobcov the onesto the right. Both men and the sets of prints they were following eventuallycame back to the main group again which Anton was still following. “What are they doing?” Sharavan asked of the tracks separating.Anton had to think about that.“It was dark when they passed through here,” he replied. “They could notsee. So they sent people off to the sides to look for the brooks.”There were three brooks along here that joined together to become one at Hill611.“You think they were lost?”“No. They knew the way to Mount Otorten when they left the tent and wereheaded that way which means they had a compass in order to do it. They

must have then seen Hill 611 and turned for it, meaning they had been in lowvisibility until they saw it. If they spread out to look for the brooks it meansthey had a map. With a map, a compass and able to see Hill 611, theyweren’t lost. Once they reached Hill 611 they would have known exactlywhere they were.”“But, if they’re not lost, why are they looking for the brooks?”That was a good question. Anton considered that.“To see if they’re frozen over,” he replied. “They have no galoshes. Theycan’t cross them if they’re not frozen over or they’ll get their feet wet.”“Surely they would have been frozen over?”Anton nodded.“But they needed to know,” he added. “You can’t get to Hill 611 from herewithout crossing at least one brook. If it wasn’t entirely frozen over they’dneed to look for a dry place to cross it. Judging by the fact that they all cameback together, they must have found them frozen over. There was no longerany need to look for a dry place to cross. They could reach Hill 611 in astraight line.”He stopped.“Here! Look!” he said. “Their tracks have changed.”

“Their tracks are no longer columned but indented,” he pointed, “the same asour own. There has been no wind or snow here since they passed through.”“Then it hasn’t been that long since these tracks were made?” he was asked.“Hard to say,” Anton admitted. “It depends on when it last snowed. Bythese tracks I would say a week or ten days. But by the columned tracks wesaw before much wind has passed through here since. So I would say thishappened two or three weeks ago. We are headed downhill so there is lesswind here. That is why the tops of these tracks have not been blown away. But, pretty soon, we’ll likely run into more snow as we get lower.”“You think we’ll lose their tracks then?” Asked Boris.“If these tracks are old – Yes,” agreed Anton. “Below Hill 611 it would below enough to snow in the last two weeks. But the weather was getting betterfor them as they passed through here. There was no wind and no snow.”“Where are they headed?”“North,” replied Anton. “They headed first northwest and now northeast. Both are north.” “But you must have some clue!”“Here they’re headed for Hill 611,” said Anton. “But before they wereheaded for Mount Otorten.”“Otorten? In their socks?”“It’s where they were originally heading to go,” Anton reminded them. “Isn’tthat what you told me?”A few minutes later, as he feared, the trail came to an end after about 500meters from the tent.They walked a little further but the foot prints did not resume. They had beensnowed over.“We’ve lost them,” said Sharavan. “Just like you said we would.”Anton reluctantly nodded.“Yes,” he agreed. “Lower elevations mean warmer air and the brooks meanmore water. They both mean more snow.”“Will we find their tracks again?”

“No. Not hardly. This snow will only get deeper.”“What do we do now?”Anton considered that and shrugged.“Well! As for you,” he said. “You can go back to the tent to see if you can’tlearn something useful. They seem to have a map and compass. Confirmthat if you can. Both should be gone from the tent. If that’s the case, they’renot lost. But it is odd that anyone would leave their tent with a map andcompass but not their shoes. So we need to confirm that. But, if I’m right,they’re were headed to Hill 611 to set their next course from there.”“To head where?” Sharavan wanted to know.Anton paused, realizing what he was about to say.“To head to Mount Otorten,” he said.“They are still headed to Mount Otorten without a tent or shoes?” demandedBoris.“This is the way,” said Anton. “They headed first northwest. That is the wayto Mount Otorten. These tracks head northeast to Hill 611. That’s also theway to Mount Otorten. There they could build a fire and set a compasscourse to Otorten. It’s why they keep moving north. Otorten is north.”“They would have to be drunk to head to Otorten in the dark without shoes!”“They were drinking,” Anton reminded them. “And they weren’t headedback to the River Auspii or they would have gone that way,” and he pointedsouth to their right as proof. “This is the way to Otorten. Once they reachedthe trees of Hill 611 and built a fire they would continue north to Otertenusing their map and compass. It is how I would go to get there.”“What if they stopped and stayed at Hill 611?”“There is one way to find out,” answered Anton, removing his rifle from hisshoulder by its sling. Working the bolt of his 91/30 Mosan-Nagant rifle, he fired three shots in theair.“Well! If they’re alive at Hill 611,” said Anton, “they should have heardthat. Otherwise, they’re probably within a mile north of where we’restanding right now.”

The others nodded but Anton did not even look for anyone responding in thedistance to the shots as he faced them, waiting on their decision. It was justthe students who looked towards the trees for any sign of the hikers.“So, from here, you really think they headed for Otorten?” asked Boris whenno one showed.Anton nodded.“Maybe they headed there thinking that’s where we would first look forthem,” suggested Sharavan. Slobcov nodded in agreement.“Yes,” he said. “And that’s exactly what we did do. So when their tent wasruined they left it for the closest place for us to find them.”“But we’ve already searched Otorten.”Again, Anton nodded, waiting on their conclusion. The students weren’tthere and it was only eight miles away. Wasn’t it obvious?They never made it. But it was not up to him to say that. He was just thehired guide. If they wanted his opinion they’d ask him for it. “We did not search this side of Ortoten,” Boris Slobcov reminded them.Anton listened and waited. The tourists were now sixteen days overdue. Theodds were these tracks were at least two weeks old. What were theyexpecting?“They were alive when they left the tent,” stated Boris. “They could still be.”“They will need a shelter, fire, and food,” replied Anton.He was still waiting on their realization. There was no such place here for thetourists to find.“They must have found it or they’d have returned to the tent,” arguedSharavan. “Don’t you agree, tracker?”“If they could find it again,” Anton said, still waiting on their decision.“They’re experienced. They could easily find Hill 1096 and the tent again ifthey wanted. You said they have a map and compass and their own trackshere to follow to get back.”That did not matter. They did not go back to the tent. Apparently, these two

needed it explained to them.“But they didn’t find it again or they’d have gotten their boots and skis,”replied Anton. When he got no reply he had to be blunt or these two would never reach adecision.“They used the wrong ski bindings to get up here, camped on an open slope,tied their tent knots wrong, faced their tent in the wrong direction, then cut itto pieces to get out, walked off in the middle of the night without their shoesin a blizzard, and never came back. And you want to call them experienced?”This time the two students took offense.“They’re college educated,” Boris defended them.“I’m not and I wouldn’t do that.”There was silence at that point. For a long time no one spoke.“So what will you do?” They finally asked of him. “Follow them to Otortenand hope to pick up their trail?”They think they’re still alive, he realized. Although Otorten was only abouteight miles from here, eight miles in socks without a tent might as well beeight thousand. The only hope was that they turned south from Hill 611 and headed back tothe River Auspii. If so, the other tracker they’d hired might find them there. As for him, his rescue work here was done. If they had turned northwestfrom Hill 611 then somewhere between Hill 611 and Mount Otorten he’dfind their frozen bodies, likely compass and map still in hand.To do that, he needed skis to follow their compass course and a dogsled onwhich to bring their bodies back.“No. That’s a waste of my time,” he answered. “I have no skis or a dogsled. I’ll be too slow on foot and I’ve got nothing to follow.”“So what will you do then?”“Go get myself some Mansi dogs. Unlike me, they don’t need footprints. They can smell.”“Think we’ll find them?”Oh! They’d find them all right. Somewhere between here and Mount

Otorten when the snow melted.But these men weren’t asking him that. They wanted to know if they’d findthem alive. He decided to avoid the same argument a second time.“As I said before, they’re within a mile of where we’re standing,” he replied.He got no argument this time. The two students just nodded. He could theywere troubled and thought maybe by now they had figured out the obvious.But – no – that wasn’t what troubled them. Instead Michail noted somethingelse that was obvious. Something they had all been thinking.“It must have been something mighty terrifying back there at the tent to makethem do such a thing as leave their tent like that. I wonder what it was.”They had not figured that out either, Anton realized. Something was not onlyterrifying back at that tent but had actually been in the tent with them. Therewas no other reason not to go back to it.“Whatever it was,” he answered before they all turned around to head back. “It didn’t leave any footprints.” That day Michail and Boris recovered three cameras, a group diary, an iceaxe, the flashlight, a pair of skis, the “medicinal” alcohol (which they drank),and as much else as they could from the tent and carried it back southwest totheir helicopter camp. The chopper soon arrived with radioman, EgorSemenovich, who promptly radioed back at 6:00 PM their discovery to theUral Polytechnic Institute.Upon learning the tent had been cut into, the university concluded a crimehad been committed against members of the Communist Party. The schoolinstructed them that two military helicopters would be sent to their locationwith two large military tents for their use with an MVD detective and ColonelOrtyukov. Moscow would reinforce them with such famous names as E. P.Maslenikov, Baskin, Bardin, and Schultzhenko, a total of nearly fiftypersons. It was about to become one of the most famous search and rescue operationsin Russian history.

While they cooked dinner, the university students at the helicopter site wentthrough what they had brought back. It included 710 rubles and returnrailroad tickets for the whole group. It proved to them no thieves wereinvolved and that they hadn’t been murdered. They thought one of the hikershad a broken leg and were waiting to be found. Boris Slobcov raised his cupthen at dinner to toast their health and that they be found soon.Yet one local man, Ivan Paschin, looked around for the man he had hired.“Where is Anton Sergei?” he asked.“He went to the Mansi to get dogs,” answered Boris.Ivan looked at him, dumbfounded, and leaned forward to ask once again.“He went to get Mansi dogs?” he repeated in amazement. “Did he say a sledtoo?”“Yes. That’s what he said.”Ivan leaned back then as if in deep and sudden realization. He knew what adog sled was for on search and rescue.“Then we should probably drink to the dead instead of to the living,” he said.Ivan’s comment was not well received. He was nearly beaten up by thestudents for it.

FEBRUARY 1, 10:00 PMFour Hours to Live

Using a flashlight and a compass, Igor Dyatlov and Alexander Zolotarevwere steering for Hill 611 on the opposite, east side of the pass in the dark,passing between three brooks that flowed first east to where all threecombined before turning south along the front of Hill 611. Hopefully, theywere frozen over and would allow them to cross in their socks. The hill they were headed to was a wooded one which meant not only lesswind and but also wood for a fire. With no boots and few coats and theunanimous opinion not to go back to the tent until it was out, this was theonly safe place to go to wait out their ordeal.The trudge was absolutely bitter cold for the two Yuri’s who had been in thefront of the tent with the stove’s heat to warm them. As such they were theleast dressed for escape now as they plodded on, their feet already numbing. They both knew at the very least they could lose their toes or feet tofrostbite. Their very lives depended upon those brooks being frozen in orderto cross them with dry feet to reach the trees and firewood beyond and, so far,both rivers they had followed to get this far had neither of them been frozen. For them, this was certain suicide.They neither one of them would have chosen leaving the tent but, as Partymembers, they all worked and survived as a team. And survival for the teammeant reaching the firewood of Hill 611 even if two of them did not live toget there. Trying to cross unfrozen, ice cold streams in socks would probablybe the death of them and there were three such streams here. They wouldhave to cross at least one, maybe more.Accordingly, when the flashlight’s batteries burned out and they threw itaway only some 400 meters from the tent, every so often they would sendtwo persons, those dressed the warmest, off to the left or right to search forthe brooks not only to see if they were frozen over but to give them a betteridea of their exact location on the map. If the brooks were not frozen over,they needed to cross over either the northernmost one or the southernmostone. Otherwise, they would have to cross twice. One alone could be too

many in cotton socks. They’d freeze for certain.If no brook was found to the north (left) then they were far enough south tomiss all three except for where they combined together into one for the runsouth. But, if a brook was found to the south the odds were they’d have tocross two.They might have already crossed one without knowing if it was frozen over,a definite possibility when trudging through two feet of snow with no light. If so, that would be good news.It was snowing again, bad news when trying to make a fire. The falling snowcould put their fire out before it got going or fill the branches they found andmade them difficult to light. That’s what happens when you go downhill –More snow.No one said anything in the dark, not even when no streams were found. They were too scared out of their minds to do so. The two Yuri’s wereonly wearing standard interior tent clothing of pants, ski pants, a short sleeveshirt, long sleeved shirt, wool sweater and two pairs of socks. Both weredressed for above 30 degree F temperatures when it was now 20 below, adifference of 50 degrees. Yuri Doroshenko had been the last to leave the site,bringing up the rear as they left, for a reason. He knew what leaving the tentmeant to him. But the group had judged there was no other choice. Bravelyand unselfishly, he trudged on.

Yuri Doroshenko

He and Kri had not do too badly for the first half hour but were now freezingto death out in the open with the wind chill and deep snow. After a thousandmeters they were fortunate and crossed just a single frozen brook to reach thetree line of Hill 611 on the opposite side of the pass with dry, though frozen,feet. They might live. Firewood was just ahead. The trees were,unfortunately, sparse and snow covered for use as firewood. But here theygot lucky again. There was a flat spot to start a fire beneath a cedar tree andcedar was the easiest wood to burn. Rustik Slobodin provided the match andIgor the paper. The fire was hurriedly made without digging a fire pitbecause it was so cold the two Yuri’s were nearly frozen to death already. There was no time to spare. Nor were there any logs to build the fire on. Itmeant the fire would melt the snow under it and eventually put itself out. But, in desperation, it was done anyway. Once the fire was going and theyall gathered around it to warm themselves, Igor laid out his plans for theirmutual survival. Kri and Doroshenko, the least dressed of them against thecold, he decided, would remain here at the fire to stay warm. The nextwarmest dressed which included Igor, Luda, and Zina, would look for furtherfirewood to keep the cedar fire going and to also warm themselves by it

between trips. The warmest dressed of them would build a snow shelter forthe night for them all, somewhere protected from out of the wind, usingbroken branch boughs as an insulating mattress to keep themselves fromcontacting the chilling snow underneath. He put Alexander Zolotarev incharge of the shelter’s construction as he had served in four Russian wintersduring the war and had built several. He was assigned Nick Thibault,Alexander Kolevatov, and Rustik Slobodin to help him as they were bestsuited clothing wise to the cold. Igor gave one of his pair of socks to Zina although it left him with only onepair. As they divided, Kri and Doroshenko set about breaking branches offthe cedar they were under to keep the fire going, knowing their livesdepended upon it, while the other three went off in search of other dry woodbefore the cedar tree’s branches ran out.

Yuri Krivonischenko

Yet Zina, Luda, and Igor soon found they had to go a long ways to find drywood to bring back, forcing the two Yuri’s to keep the fire going themselvesby breaking off more cedar boughs from the tree. They began by breakingoff the easier bottom boughs and working their way higher up, either unawarethat this was a mistake or so cold they didn’t care. After a while, they had toclimb the previous broken branches to get more and, each time, climb higher

to do so.

FEBRUARY 27, 1959Morning

Yuri Koptelov and Michail Sharavin approached the treed hill on thesoutheast side of the pass, the one called 611. Their job was to find acampsite between the two brooks in the trees towards before they turnednorthwest for Otorten and for which the Dyatlov party was last headed. Bysetting up base camp here the search parties could then continue the searchnorth for the missing Dyatlov party without having to cross any creeks. Theyfound here was what appeared to be an ideal spot of level ground. But someone was already there.

Coming closer they stopped short of a denuded cedar tree. Two bodies lay inthe snow and there was the remains of a small campfire. The two men hadbeen feeding branches of the cedar tree to it until they ran out of them and

froze to death. Someone had then laid their bodies out side by side, one onhis stomach and one on his back.Sharavan identified them as Yuri Krivonishenko and Yuri Doroshenko andthey were wearing only one pair of socks and no boots, just as their guide,Anton Sergei, had said. Worse than this, one had no socks at all on one foot.They were only wearing what would best be described as tent “pajamas”. They had no parkas, hats, and no gloves. And the fire had been poorlymade. A knife was found.For them to be found wearing so little clothing (virtually naked for theconditions) was a sign of “paradoxical undressing”, a condition associatedwith 20-50% of all hypothermia cases. When the person approaches death, inconfusion and believing themselves now warm when numbness sets in, theybegin to undress. Was this what had happened?Why else were they dressed so?“They might have been chased up that tree by something,” suggested one. “Held on as long as they could and then fell.”“Maybe. When the tracker gets back,” said Sharavan in reply. “I want himto see this.”

Anton arrived several hours later with two Mansi hunters and a few dogs andhad a look at the two young dead men. It wasn’t what he did for a living butit was apparent to him how they had died. He could tell by the way theirbodies were laid out. Their hands were above their heads. They had eitherdied falling or been dragged away from the fire by their arms. The way theywere laid, side by side, he figured they had been dragged. At that point, theywere already dead. They had fallen, probably from the tree while breakingoff the upper branches. The tree had been denuded of every branch theycould break off and burn to a height of fifteen feet. With their hands frozennumb and having to climb fifteen feet up to get more, they couldn’t hold on. Such a fall was enough to break ribs.He was asked if the men had engaged in paradoxical undressing in their lastfew minutes of life.“No,” he said. “Someone laid them out here afterwards and used a knife to

cut wrappings from off this man’s wool pants and probably took off thisman’s one good wool sock, leaving this other burned one behind. I trackedno one in the snow barefoot and this man’s foot is bare. So he had both socksearlier. They were stripped of their useful clothing by the others after theydied.”“Couldn’t they have taken their own clothes off?”“Then where are those clothes now?”“If the others took them, then the others survived?”“Yes. But they didn’t stay here. They moved on. The fire was out. It’s whythey couldn’t find the knife you found. They likely stopped here to warmthese two up with a hurried fire. When that failed and they died, they tooktheir clothes for themselves and left them here.” “Did something chase them up the tree and break the branches off to getthem?”Anton shook his head. “If that happened the broken branches would still be here on the ground. No. These two burned the branches. They had to keep climbing higher up the treefor more firewood, breaking the branches off from the bottom up. Yet theyshould have begun with the branches highest up and worked their way down. Instead, each trip up became more dangerous. It caused them to fall severaltimes, perhaps even falling into the fire itself. This man’s sock here is burnedeither from landing in the fire or his foot may have been too numb and hetried to warm himself too close to the fire. Either way, he never felt it. Sothey would have been either severely injured by falling or died of exposure asthe fire went out. This man here,” he said of Yuri Kri on his back, “landedon the back of his head. And you can see their hands are both torn fromclimbing the tree.”He stood up, looking for any other signs.“They tried to burn wet wood when there is dry wood over there. It means itwas too dark for them to see if it was dry or not and their hands were sonumb they could not feel them to tell. It was night. The knife was lost in thedark. These two were probably too numb to have started this fire bythemselves. Someone else started it for them. And they started it in a hurry

without a pit and without logs for these two were probably nearly frozen todeath already. Even then, for them, the fire was too late.”“You said they were without shoes,” said Michail. “You said we’d find themwithin a mile of where their trail ended and you were right on both counts.”“I was wrong about one thing,” replied Anton. “I said they were headed forMount Otorten because they were moving north. They weren’t. They splitthe brooks in half and they did it in the dark. They were headed for Hill 611for firewood and they knew what they were doing.”“What were they doing?” asked Michail.“What were you doing here when you found them here?”“Looking for a good place to camp.”“So were they,” said Anton. “They picked the same spot you did. Theyquickly made a fire for these two but apparently the only way to keep it goingwas for them both to climb the tree for more branches. They ran out of treebefore the night ran out of cold.”He looked down at them and noted in curious wonder.“A mile from their boots and parkas and yet they died like this,” he said“It makes no sense,” agreed Sharavan. “It’s madness!”Anton said nothing.These men were not mad. They knew how to get here in the dark, knew agood campsite when they saw one, and they knew they were freezing to deathand tried desperately to save themselves. They were sane enough torecognize a cedar, even in the dark, and had the sense to know it would burneven when green and wet. They had done their part to keep it going, evenseverely hurting themselves from falling in order to do so.No. Except for the failure to dig a fire pit these two men were perfectly sane.That they failed to dig a fire pit or lay down fire logs was an act ofdesperation. And, if that was the case, then their reason for leaving the tentand not going back to it was perfectly sane too.Whatever was back at the tent was worse than this.

“Maybe they they trying to see the tent from up in the tree?” someoneoffered.“Hard to say,” Anton answered, looking up. “I don’t think its high enoughfor them to do so and I doubt they could see a tent a mile away in the darkanyway. It’s safer to say they needed branches for burning as their frozenbodies and burned branches so testify.”“Why would sane men come out here in just their tent clothes to die? Whynot go back?”“Most likely for the same reason they left the tent in the first place,” repliedAnton. “It was more dangerous there than here. But these two men wereprobably too cold beyond going back. By the time they got here, they werealready half frozen. They did not even bother to dig a fire pit or put downlogs. That’s how cold they were. They were desperate and couldn’t wait. Iwould estimate they got enough branches off this tree to keep their fire goingfor maybe an hour or two before they died, probably falling to get more. After that, the fire went out. From the time they left their tent to when theydied is no more than two and one half hours and possibly less. This fireextended their lives but probably only by an hour. They neither one warmedup enough to ever dig a fire pit. So by the time they reached this tree, theywere already too far gone to turn back. Their tent might as well have beenten miles away as a mile.”

“Everything they needed they left back at their tent,” concluded Michail.“Including their tent,” added Anton. Again, everyone considered madness or perhaps drunkenness. A drunkmight walk off without his valenki boots and galoshes and not feel the cold.But at some point, long before they even reached this tree, they knew theywere cold and yet they didn’t turn back. And they were sober enough notonly to navigate their way here but to check for the brooks on each side ofthem, evidence they knew they weren’t wearing galoshes and evidence theyknew the brooks were there. To understand that meant they knew they lefttheir footwear behind at the tent too. “Maybe the weather warmed up and they came here for firewood and did notneed their valenkis or galoshes,” someone else then offered. “Then theweather went bad. It snowed a foot you said. We checked their pockets andthey did not have a compass so they knew they couldn’t get back and sostarted this fire.”“If they came here to collect firewood,” said Anton, “They left their saws inthe tent.”“Well! Maybe they came here for another reason? The night they abandonedtheir tent another party camped nearby stated they saw a light in the sky passright over this pass.”“They certainly had a reason for being here,” agreed Anton. “But it is not avery obvious one.” There was a moment’s silence between them and then Michail asked theobvious.“If the others were here with them, wouldn’t they have gone back to the tentafter these two died? It’s obvious they went somewhere and the tent is onlyan hour’s walk away.”Anton nodded his head.“It’s possible. But, if they did, they didn’t make it or we’d have found themthere.”“So you’re saying if they tried that they’re somewhere under the snowbetween here and the tent?”“That’s one possibility. Yes.”

“What’s the other?”“That, like these two,” Anton said, “they judged themselves to be safer herethan back at the tent. In that case, they never went back.” Again, each man wondered to himself what was back at that tent for them allto leave it and not go back and prefer death here. Michail broke the silence toask.“What do we do now?”“Well!” said Anton. “For now, you can take these bodies back to the morguewhile I set up a line of ski poles from here to the tent in a straight line bycompass. Then we’ll check to both sides of the line of poles for bodies underthe snow. If the others did try to go back and didn’t make it, we’ll find them. We’ll have to form our own search line though because the Mansi won’t goup there. So I’ll have them search this hill here with their dogs for a snowden while we form the search line. They might have dug themselves onesomewhere nearby. If so, the dogs will find them.”The students all fell silent at what that meant. Finally, one asked.“Why won’t the Mansi go up to Hill 1096?” he wanted to know.“Superstition,” answered Anton. “A few years back nine of them died upthere too.”“What killed them?”“They don’t know. They were just dead.”“Nine of theirs dead up there and now nine of ours?”“Yeah! The math works out, doesn’t it?” stated Anton. “It’s why they won’tgo now.”“You think there’s ghosts up there?”“They do.”And maybe these two dead men thought so too because, whatever it was thatso frightened them to leave the tent and not go back even under threat ofcertain death, it left no tracks behind.

Subsequent autopsy examination showed that Yuri Doroshenko’s hands andfeet were terminally frost bitten, both limbs had internal bleeding, and bonefractures from falling. He was wearing a short sleeve shirt, long sleeve shirt,and a vest. Otherwise, he had only a pair of knit pants and one wool sock,the left one, and it was burned. He had no sweater and no parka. Yuri Krialso had only one sock on (torn and on his left foot), a short sleeve shirt, andlong sleeved shirt. He too had no sweater or parka. He had 500 grams ofurine in his bladder, a sign he was drinking fairly heavily (*). Again, one ofthe alcohol flasks was traced to him. The skin of his right hand was found inhis mouth. He had been sucking a bloodied hand.Anton studied their clothing. Standard tent wear included sweaters and twopairs of socks. Both were missing theirs, taken by the others. But a fewsocks and sweaters would not have been enough for the others either. *The relationship between distension of the urinary bladder as a sign ofintoxication at autopsy was confirmed by eight scientists for ForensicScience International, February 10, 2013 edition.

FEBRUARY 1, 11:00 PMThree Hours to Live

Igor Dyatlov gave up pressing down on Yuri Doroshenko’s chest to try torevive him. He had been found after falling from the tree by Alex Kolevatovand Rustik Slobodin when they had both gotten too cold while working onthe den and come back to warm themselves by the fire. They had come backto find both Yuri’s lying on the ground, Yuri Kri obviously dead. He too hadfallen from the tree, landing on his head and in the hot embers of the firewithout even waking up. Kolevatov had pulled Kri out of the coals whosepants had caught fire, burning his own hands and sleeves to do so, but it hadbeen for naught. Kri had died. Igor did not even bother to try to resuscitatehim. If being on fire would not wake him up, nothing would. Igor had comeback from a more distant trip for firewood along with Zina and Luda to findthem like this. And now Doroshenko was also dead.Slobodin and Kolevatov had already put themselves to work at climbing thecedar tree not only to build the fire back up for the two Yuri’s in case theywere still alive but also to warm themselves by it. Yet their attempt to revivethe fire was also a failure. When they climbed the tree for more cedarbranches they too fell; Slobodin from about ten feet up had hit his own headtoo and was knocked nearly senseless. Kolevatov was also hurt, even moreso, breaking his nose, cutting himself behind the ear, and severely injuring hisneck.After that, everyone gave up trying to climb the tree.And so the fire died and went out.The other four men and women were now in deep in despair and horror. Despair that the fire was out and horror that both Yuri’s were dead! It wasunthinkable, unbelievable that they could have died on a pleasure campingtrip. Surely they had to still be alive! How could the two of them possibly bedead? How could this even be happening?And then there was the grim realization and fear that anyone of them could benext.

Igor now had to make an unpleasant decision. While the others stared insilent shock and disbelief that this had happened, the fact was the rest of themwould soon follow. Zina and Luda needed to get warmer clothes or they’dfreeze too. He had to strip these two of their clothes for the benefit of theothers. Communist Party doctrine dictated the group benefited equally fromany such clothing distribution and the two women were dressed inferior tothe remaining men. He gave them both permission to strip the two Yuri’s ofwhatever they needed. As both Yuri’s were pretty much equally dressed, hemade the decision of how to divide their clothing.“Luda,” he said, “take Doroshenko’s. Zina! You take Kri’s.”While they set about stripping the two men, the still hurting Slobodin andKolevatov both looked at Igor for what his plan of survival was for them inthis freezing cold. Yet, while Igor was standing beside them both, his eye was on the womenstriping the two Yuri’s and not on them. When Slobodin noticed this, he finally spoke up.“We haven’t enough wood to keep a fire going,” he said. “And, without it,we’ll freeze. I know I will. You, Luda, and Kolevatov all have jackets. Idon’t.”“You at least have one valenki. That’s better than the rest of us,” repliedIgor. “What’s your suggestion?”“That we go back to the tent.”“Go back to the tent?!” gasped Igor in surprise. “You know what’s backthere. In fact, you’re responsible for it!”The shivering Zina who had been putting on Doroshenko’s pants and sweaterlooked over at Dyatlov having heard this accusation now a second time.“What are you talking about?” she wanted to know.“I’m talking about him!” cried Igor. “See how’s he got one boot on? Hetook the other off after coming back in the tent. He’s the one who let it in. Hestarted it. We’re all here because of him!”“It wasn’t him,” said Kolevatov.“Look! You can blame anyone you want,” interrupted Slobodin. “But I’mgoing back. If I stay out here I’ll be dead the same as them!”

“You’re staying! You know our training! We do this together!”“Then we leave together because I am not staying here together. This is abad plan. They’re both dead from staying here! We’re next! I’m leavingand you’re not stopping me!”Luda, who had busied herself by taking one unburned sock off Yuri Kri andhis burnt ski pants for herself, and was even then using Kri’s own knife to cutoff his sweater into two wool strips and wrap them around her feet, turnedaround at hearing this. As the most loyal communist of the group, she knewat once what Slobodin had just said was unthinkable.No Communist Party member would abandon the group to practiceindividual survival. The group worked as a collective unit to survive and notby independent action. What Slobodin was thinking amounted to treason. He could be kicked out of the Communist Party for even mentioning it.They were all loyal communists. Or so they all believed until now. Slobodinrepresented dissent and the Communist Party disallowed dissent.As the group’s self-appointed leader, it was up to Igor to point out toSlobodin the error of his ways. He would do it with his fists.A fight broke out between the two men then which started Zina screamingand left Kolevatov watching for he was undecided as he also had come backto the tree because he too was cold. Luda supported Igor.Although he had been the heaviest drinker of the group, Igor Dyatlov got inseveral good rights to the head of Slobodin, possibly one to the nose andcertainly one to the right eye as well as another to the side of the head. Slobodin must have got Igor a good one just below the right eye. The fightmomentarily ended then when Slobodin realized he was losing in spite ofbeing sober and that he had no support from the others.“Look!” he finally offered. “If I go back I’ll know if it’s safe or not. If it is,I’ll come back and get the rest of you. Given an hour each way, I should beback in two hours.”Kolevatov was waiting on Igor’s decision. It made sense to him. Someonehad to go back and see if it was safely out or not.Yes. It did make sense to Igor too. But not all of them would go – onlySlobodin. The rest would stay here in the shelter of the woods.

“All right!” he conceded. “But you’re to come back one way or the other!”Slobodin nodded in agreement and took the opportunity to leave them thenand head back.Igor turned to the others. “We’ll go back to collecting firewood,” he instructed. “We’ll then light it inan hour to guide Slobodin back.“I can’t gather wood now,” shivered Kolevatov. “I’m too hurt and too cold.”“Then go back to the shelter. Luda?” he said to her as she had a coat. “Gowith him. See to it he stays warm and then help the others finish the den. I’llstay here with Zina and collect the firewood to guide Slobodin’s return. Zina? Is that all right with you?”“I’ll stay with you,” she replied.Nothing more was said about Slobodin. Although they all disagreed with hisindependent action they did not disagree with his reasoning. Though theywere all trained to believe in communal sharing and cooperation and tosurvive as a group and not as individuals and that Rustik’s Slobodin’s actionshad been deserving of Igor’s fists, it was decided to let Slobodin go back if hewanted since, if he was successful and came back, what he was doing wasbest for the group.

Rustem Slododin

The group then returned to communal thinking. Slobodin was right. The fire

couldn’t be kept going by using the cedar tree. And the wood they hadbrought back with them now was not only wet but not enough and so wouldhave to be set by the fire embers for drying. Igor would wait an hour or soand then try and burn them so that Slobodin could find his way back tothem. Alex Kolevatov and Luda rejoined Zolotarev and Nick in building theden now that she had warmer clothes. Zina insisted in staying with Igor andhelp get the fire going again. She had apparently found her true love.When Luda brought Kolevatov back to Zolotarev and Nick at the shelter theywere building, it was realized Kolevatov was too hurt and cold to help buildthe den, the latter being the very reason he had gone back to the fire in thefirst place. It was his feet, he complained. They were numb and now he washurt from falling from the tree. The only way to keep him alive and fromfreezing was to put him on the partly constructed shelter they had built whilethe others finished it. To keep his feet warm, Luda unselfishly wrapped themboth in one of the wool strips she’d cut off Yuri Kri. So they were once again divided up; two groups this time - Zina staying withIgor at the tree to build a stockpile of wood for drying and later burning tosignal Slobodin on how to find them, and Kolevatov and Luda going back tothe den Zolotarev and Nick were building.Whether it was known to them or not, they were primarily losing body heatthrough their heads, hands, and feet. None had mittens so all were losingheat equally this way. Most of the others had hats when Doroshenko and Krihad none and most had better socks than the two Yuris so those two had diedfirst. But the order of freezing to death had now been established. Head andfootwear dictated who, if anyone, died next.

FEBRUARY 27

Mid Morning

A line of ski poles laid out on a compass heading between the cedar tree andthe collapsed tent were now in place. According to Anton Sergei, if anyoneof Dyatlov party tried to return to the tent, they would have done so alongthis route, likely following their own tracks back to the tent if they stillexisted at the time. The searchers formed a line at the tree, facing the distant tent, and allstanding side by side. Less than half the men were on the left side of the poleline and more than half on the other. If they tried to follow their ownfootprints back it would put them to right of the poles so Anton concentratedthe most searchers there.“Use your poles and prod the snow in front of you as deep as you can,”Anton instructed them. “You should not hit anything in snow this deep. Ifyou do, stop and uncover it. Stay close to the man next to you and advancealong this line of ski poles. Ready!” he called, raising his right arm.And then he dropped it.“Begin!”Two dozen ice prods hit the snow simultaneously.

FEBRUARY 1, 12:00 AM

Two Hours to Live Igor Dylatov was in a state of contradiction. Rustik Slobodin should be backby now to tell them whether it was safe to return to the tent or not. Igorthought he knew what was best for the group and so dictated to themaccordingly but two hours had passed and things had not gone according tohis plan. Not only did he have two dead but Slobodin hadn’t returned aspromised.Zina had noticed Rustik wasn’t back either. He was better dressed than shewas for making the trek. He should have made it and been back by now. And now Zina and he were both freezing, having lit their small collection ofwood an hour ago for Slobodin to find his way back by. Now that too hadgone out. There was enough heat from the embers to warm themselves andmaybe dry some more wet wood but, until then, they’d freeze. Somethingelse had to be done.Igor was used to leading, used to success, and not used to having hisdecisions questioned. But, when they were questioned, rather than give upthe leadership role, he took over the new direction as if it were his own. His leadership had been questioned tonight four times. First, Zolotarev hadquestioned his decision to cut their way out of the tent. Neither of the twoYuri’s had wanted to leave the tent and now both were dead by his decisionand everyone knew it. That was bad enough but Slobodin had then openlyrebelled, questioning his leadership, and then others had agreed with lettingSlobodin go, overruling Igor’s fight. And then Slobodin hadn’t come backand now Zina was questioning him about where he was and what to do.So Igor Dylatov was about to lead the charge to disagree with himself. Hehad come back to the fire with but a single slim birch branch and the fire hadgone out.And Slobodin had left with the last match.

It was time for Igor to reassess the situation. Slobodin was right. They weregoing to die out here. He had long since lost all feeling in his feet. Even hisknees were numb. It wasn’t even midnight and two of them were deadalready and it was hours to go before dawn. They’d never make it.With his tree branch still in hand, Igor started out after Slobodin in thedirection of the tent, telling Zina to stay with the embers as long as shecould. Like Slobodin had done, he followed their own previous tracks ingetting here.

FEBRUARY 27, 1959Noon

Just hours after the discovery of the two bodies under the tree and using thesearch technique suggested by Anton Sergei, Vasily Tempalov of Ivdel,discovered a body under the snow about 300 meters from the cedar tree andin the direction of the tent:

They photographed the site first and then the searchers proceeded to dig itout. They found a man lying on his back:

It was Igor Dyatlov and some believed he had died trying to protect his faceby the position of his hands.His head was facing the direction of the tent. A birch branch was found inhis left hand. He had a pocket knife and a picture of Zina Kholmogorova. Hehad abrasions on both cheeks, dried blood on his lips, and bruises to the righthand consistent with fighting. There was frozen ice on his face suggesting hewas breathing into snow when he died.Igor Dyatlov endured the entire ordeal with his feet covered in just one pairof socks, one was cotton and the other wool. Although he had no hat orshoes and only standard tent wear of a sweater, long sleeved shirt, and skipants over his pants, he did have the advantage of a fur coat. He had a liter ofurine in his bladder, indicating he had been drinking even more than Yuri Kriwhen the incident in the tent occurred. Anton now studied the body. Igor must have fallen his on face and thenrolled over somehow. But why were his hands up? No one died with theirhands up. And why was his fur coat unbuttoned? Who would do that?

Anton’s first thought was that Igor had felt warm in the last moments of hislife and unbuttoned the coat. But it was unlikely he could unbutton his coatwith numb fingers while still holding the branch in his hand. Further, itlooked by the position of his hands like he was trying to hold his open coatclosed, rather than open it. But why didn’t he just button it up earlier whenhe could have instead to trying to hold it closed?He finally decided Igor’s hands were too far away from his chest to beholding his coat closed. Also, if he had been holding his coat closed with hishands he would be holding his coat and not a branch.Something was wrong with the body. This position was not natural.

The mismatched socks were unusual and he should have been wearing twopair and not one. To be mismatched indicated he couldn’t find their propermates, a sign he was probably in the dark when he put them on or drunk. Hemight have been putting them on to go outside the tent to empty his bladder

but bare feet in a tent was pretty unusual. He should have two pairs of sockson, drunk or not, wools over cottons. Or perhaps he had just come in fromurinating and taken off his outer pair of socks to shake the snow off?Either way, this man had done it wrong. To go outside in his socks he shouldhave put on an extra pair of socks and not gone out in just two. That way,when he came back in and took them off, he’d still have two pair on, standardtent wear. So he was not in standard wear twice over. He should have beenwearing two cotton socks with wool socks over them, and not one of each.There seemed to be only one explanation.This man, their leader, had been drunk inside the tent. He had probably beentoo drunk to button up his own fur coat which he had somehow managed tograb on his way out of the tent.He wondered how Igor had even found his coat in the hurry to get out of thetent.Or maybe, he thought, looking at the coat, there’s another reason it wasunbuttoned?A dead person could not possibly hold his elbows up long enough for rigormortis or freezing to set in while in the position. No. This man died on hisface and not on his back. It was why he was breathing into the snow and whyhis position was wrong.

Studying the man, Anton realized that, turned over on his face, IgorDyatlov’s death position would have been like this:

He had died dragging himself forward in the snow, hands in fists to conservewarmth. With only one pair of socks, he had lost the use of both legs,possibly using the branch as a crutch at first to walk. When he fell, his barehands were probably as frozen as his feet and he failed to let go of the branchor simply chose not to. But, if he had died on his face, why was he now on his back with his jacketunbuttoned?His clenched fingers could not have unbuttoned it and certainly not whilelying on his face. Someone, he realized, had rolled him over after he was dead and frozen stiff. That person had unbuttoned his jacket, trying to get it off him, but couldn’t.Who wouldn’t be able to get it off him? “There’s another body,” he said. “Straight ahead from this one. It’s awoman and she doesn’t have a coat.”

FEBRUARY 1 12:30 AMLess than Two Hours to Live

Zina turned Dyatlov’s body over in the snow. She had followed after himwhen the embers of fire at the cedar tree failed to give off any more warmthat all. There was no more reason to stay at the tree. She was frozen numb. She would not last another hour there. She had to decide either to reach thetent or join the others at the den Zolotarev was building.She had chosen true love, following after Igor. Following their own tracks inthe snow back to the tent she had stumbled upon him, face first, in the snow. Turning him over, she found him quite dead and already frozen solid, his faceice-covered from his last breaths in the snow. She realized instantly he waslong gone and there was no hope of reviving him. She tried to get his furcoat off him for herself but he was frozen too solid, it was taking too long,and, weak from the sub-freezing temperatures, she gave up.Zina managed to get up once more and continue towards the tent. It was herlast chance of survival or she’d be just as dead as Igor Dyatlov. 75 meters southeast of the tree the other four members were still at work withtheir snow shelter, unaware of what had happened to Igor and Zina. AlexZolotarev had made the decision to build it in the lowest spot he could find;the frozen southward running brook in front of Hill 611 they had crossed toget here. This was the best protected place in case the wind should comeback. The sides and bottom of the brook were of solid rock and, on the higheast side, it was a steep, twelve foot climb just to get to the top of the bank. Above the bank was, again, the sparsely treed Hill 611. They had beenclimbing up and down it now for the last several hours in search of fir treeboughs to use to line the floor of the shelter. It was a very slow process andonly about half finished when Kolevatov, who was freezing and had a severeneck injury from falling from the cedar and could no longer help, wasbrought back from the tree by Luda and placed on it. Luda told the others

that both Yuri Kri and Yuri Doroshenko had died back at the tree when thefire went out.And Zolotarev was now not doing much better. Unlike Nick, who was fullyclothed to stay out on his outdoor watch, he was only dressed to go outsidethe tent long enough to take a compass bearing. He had no coat, only amuffler, and no mittens. He and Nick had both been chosen to build theshelter because they both had shoes and he knew how it was done. Otherwise, the cold was slowly targeting him for death next. Yet the hero ofWorld War II never showed it, refusing to stop work on the den just as,unknown to him, Igor had refused to stop trying to reach the tent even whenhis legs were useless.Luda, their natural nurse, did what she could for all. After putting Kolevatovon the middle of the temporary bough shelter and wrapping his feet in wool,she had Zolotarev lie on it on one side of Kolevatov and she on the other inorder for them all to huddle long enough to help warm up all three of them.Eventually though, both Luda and Zolotarev would have to climb the bankagain and rejoin Nick in finishing the shelter. Little did they realize then ofthe terrible fate that awaited them just above the bank.

FEBRUARY 27, 1959Late Afternoon

Anton’s two Mansi using dogs had found a second body further past IgorDyatlov’s, exactly as he predicted. It was the body of Zina Kholmogorovaand she was buried under a foot and a half of snow.

She had died trying to reach the tent. Zina had made it another 360 meterspast Igor, over twice as far as he did, when she too died, face first in thesnow, bleeding from the nose. She had made it further back to the tent than

anyone. She was dressed in two hats, two shirts, and two sweaters (one takenoff Yuri Kri as it had been cut), three pairs of pants (Again, one from Kri),including ski pants, and three pairs of socks (One pair offered her by Igor.). She had a military mask for skiing, the only known member of the group tohave one.The mystery of what had happened to Yuri Kri’s standard tent wear had beensolved. Zina was wearing it.Except for her two hats, everything she wore was also standard tent wear justwith Kri’s added. Like Igor, who had grabbed his fur coat on the way out ofthe tent, she had grabbed a hat. There had been no time to grab anythingelse. The second hat she probably had also gotten off Kri. As there was 300g of urine in her bladder, she too had not yet gone to bed when the event inthe tent happened and likely been drinking with Kri and Igor (though not asmuch).Based on this, Anton set his mind to studying their last hours. They had been awake, talking and probably drinking and all dressed in tentclothes. And then it suddenly happened. In an instant they were alldesperately trying to get out of the tent but not all at the same time nor out thefront entrance. They cut their way out. Both Yuri Kri and Yuri Doroschenkomade it out first and explaining why they had grabbed the least clothing. Itwas while waiting for their turn at getting out that Zina grabbed her hat andIgor his fur coat, suggesting he was last to leave after Zina.Yet the whole thing had happened in mere seconds, Zina and Igor grabbingjust one item of clothing each in the time it took the two Yuri’s to get out andthen they followed. The tent had been cut open and evacuated in the fastestpossible time. They were like sailors on a rapidly sinking ship, the last twograbbing lifejackets while the first two got in the raft.Something was blocking their way from using the tent entrance (The foot ofsnow perhaps?). And whatever it was caused them to cut their way out andget out in a hurry, leave, and not come back (No one else believed him thatthey had cut their way out, all still insisting someone else had cut their wayin.). Upon further thinking, he realized the entrance to the tent had been blocked

quite suddenly. After all, someone had recently used the tent entrance tourinate (It was still unbuttoned when he found it.). It had been unblockedthen for that person.That ruled out snow blocking it.To get out, someone had started to cut through the front of the tent roof, thenstopped, and started once again, only higher, cutting from the front of the tenttowards the rear. Whoever made that cut had judged the first cut too low andso started again. Why? What difference did that make?And whoever made the cut was standing right next to whatever was blockingthe entrance to the tent. Whatever was blocking the entrance did not attackthe person holding the knife and whoever was holding the knife did not attackwhatever was blocking the entrance.The Mansi had their own explanation for what happened. Though they couldonly count on the fingers of two hands that was enough. Nine tourists hadmet the ghosts of nine dead Mansi who had died on that very hill before.And it was beginning to look like they had a point.But there was one point the Mansi were missing. It was dark inside the tent when it happened. Igor couldn’t match his socks. Zina could only find her hat. The reason was obvious.The candle had gone out.In a snow tent a candle is used for heat as well as light. The snow insulationaround the tent limits how cold it gets inside. The heat of nine people’sbodies plus a single candle can raise the inside temperature of a snow walledtent above freezing even when it’s well below freezing outside. The fourpeople he’d found so far were all wearing sweaters, two pairs of pants, andtwo pairs of socks in the tent. That was standard tent wear. Yet none werewearing tent shoes.Tent shoes were sleeping shoes that were warmer than socks. They were puton just before the candle was blown out as, without the warmth of the candle,two pairs of socks were eventually not enough as the tent cooled. They puttheir tent shoes on before the candle was blown out while they could still find

them by the candlelight.

Since none of the four found were wearing tent shoes it reasoned the candlewas still lit just before the event happened. Yet they exited in the dark. Otherwise, Zina would not have grabbed a hat but a coat and Igor would nothave mismatched socks.The candle was out.And no one deliberately put it out or they’d have their tent shoes on. It wasjust suddenly out.Up until then, their ham dinner was still out, unfinished. Cocoa was beingrewarmed. The one called Zolotarev had been writing the Otorten EveningNews. He had to be able to see to write. One wouldn’t waste flashlightbatteries for that. So a candle was lit and they had their tent shoes off.And then suddenly, the candle went out and all hell broke loose inside. Everyone was trying to get out and by the most insane means and Zina couldonly find her hat and Igor his fur coat. It was they couldn’t see. They weregroping in the dark. It was pitch black inside the tent.The candle had gone out. It was the only explanation.And it wasn’t a person who blew it out. It went out unexpectedly.Anton took a swig of vodka as it was passed around the fire then by theothers. His Mansi were all talking ghosts and the Russian Party members hadgiven up all hope of finding the others alive after finding Zina. Zina and Igorwere proof that at least two had tried to make it back, proof conditions wereworse where they were at the tree then back at the tent. The other five werealso out there somewhere buried under the snow. But what the Russiansweren’t asking themselves was why those five hadn’t also tried to reach thetent?Anton pondered that.What was in that tent that seven people would choose certain death ratherthan go back?So the Mansi were winning the argument as Anton passed the flask to thenext man.He was not an educated man and not above superstition. You live amongst

Mansi long enough and you can start to believe what they believe. But healso lived amongst the Russians with whom Anton traded furs and, if you dothat long enough, you can start to believe what they believe too and theydon’t believe in ghosts. Having never seen one himself, he decided he had noreason to start believing in them now.So, once again, he put his mind back to the final minutes in that tent.They were talking, reading, writing, and the candle was lit. Warm ham wasat hand but evidently no one was very hungry. Their shoes were off. Theywere drinking but only one had gone out to urinate. Igor was holding hisbladder in as he was full. He hadn’t gone out yet.Bad weather was keeping him inside. It was snowing and probably windy. According to the drifts the wind was blowing right at the tent entrance.And then suddenly it was dark and everybody wanted out all at once. Grabbing clothes was secondary to getting out. And yet they cut their wayout instead of using the front flap which would have taken longer than usingthe front entrance. But now, for the first time, he realized why the candle was out. He kept it tohimself though as the flask came around again.Instead, his attention shifted to Zina’s nosebleed. Hypothermia does notproduce nosebleeds. She could have been struck in the face to cause it andIgor had hit somebody, his right fist showed it. Yet Zina showed no sign ofbruising.Anton knew a little about nosebleeds because, sooner or later, everyone hasone. But you don’t have them in cold air. That’s the first thing you learn outhere. Cold prevents nosebleeds. If she didn’t get her nosebleed from beingpunched then there was only reason to haveone. Nosebleeds can occurspontaneously when the nasal membranes dry out and crack. She had to havebeen exposed to warm, dry air for that to happen. Yet the air was not dry thenight she died. It was very wet and why it snowed so heavily. And itcertainly wasn’t warm as their frozen bodies testified. So how had she beenexposed to warm, dry air?You have to have both and not just one.How had she gotten that nosebleed?

It was out of place. None of the other three found had one either. So heguessed it probably meant nothing as he drew a deep swig and passed theflask on.He decided to listen to the Mansi.

MARCH 2, 1959The Auspii Valley

Today three students and Anton’s two Mansi found where the Dyatlov partyhad lightened their load by leaving some equipment on a raised platform inthe trees of Hill 663 before setting off northwest for the east slope of Hill1096. The cache included some food, clothes, ski shoes, a pair of skis, andthe mandolin but no firewood.The next day, the students of the search party left, having to return to schoolfor the spring semester. The Moscow specialists also took the opportunity toleave with them having now lost any hope of finding the others alive. Thesearch was left to Anton Sergei.

MARCH 5, 1959Between the Tent and the Tree

Anton Sergei had just dug up another body. It was Rustik Slobodin who hadmade it 480 meters from the cedar tree. Unlike Igor Dyatlov and Zina, whoboth died crawling forward in the snow, he had died peacefully, his head stillso warm it had melted the surrounding snow. He had made it perhaps a thirdof the way back to the tent and it likely took him about twenty minutes to getthis far.

He had made it 180 meters past where Igor’s body was found. Slobodin hadalso been turned over so, evidently, someone had found him as well. Thatwould have been Zina as she was the only other known one to make it this

far. Rustik was dressed about the same as most. He was wearing two shirts, asweater, two pairs of pants, and four pairs of socks. Except for the four pairsof socks instead of two, that was standard tent wear. He did, however, haveone valenki boot on. As he was the only one to have no reported urine in hisbladder, it was a sign to Anton he was the one person to urinate outside. Hehad likely put his boots on and perhaps another two pair of socks to go out(Although adding socks to valenkis was an unusual thing to do.). He musthad just come back in and was taking his boots off at the time of the incident(Exactly as Igor Dyatlov accused him.).He had 310 rubles in his pockets, a passport, pen, pencil, comb, and a singlematch. His body showed signs of being in a fight, with a blow just above theright eye and abrasions to both sides of his face. He also had a bloody nose,swollen lips, and bruises to both hands common to hand to hand combat. Anton wondered if this was the man Igor had fought. Once again, Anton noted the bloody nose. While it was consistent with himhaving been in a fight, this was the second of five bodies he had found with abloody nose. Zina had one too and she had not been in a fight. Anton looked for any useful clues that might lead to the other four missinghikers. Of the three he had found trying to get back to the tent, Zina had leftlast, rolling first Igor and then Rustik over when she found them. She hadbeen unable to get Igor’s fur coat off him, a sign he was completely frozensolid by then and dead for at least an hour.Had Rustik been with her when she found Igor?No. He decided. If that were the case, between the two of them, they wouldhave succeeded in getting Igor’s coat off him. Also, except for having anextra two pair of socks and one valenki, he was no better dressed than YuriKri and Yuri Doroschenko who had both died, freezing to death at the cedartree. This man would not have lived much longer than the two Yuri’s. If hehad left for the tent soon after those two died, he’d have made it just aboutthis far.And he hadn’t come across Igor or he’d be wearing Igor’s fur coat.So this man left the tree first being the coldest and there was no Igor out herefor him to find. Igor was still back at the tree. Then Igor left next but died

before catching up with Rustik. In order for Zina to find them both, Igor hadleft second and she third.This man knew he would be next to die (Both Igor and Zina were dressedwarmer than he was.). But he was not allowed to leave peacefully. He had tofight for the right to leave. Obviously, none of those he left behind had anyidea he’d fallen until Zina found him. That meant the others had left him tohis own fate.Anton knew what that was – Communist Party thinking. This man wanted togo back to the tent rather than die like the other two at the tree. The othershad disagreed, evidently believing it was safer at the tree than back at thetent, and this man was beaten for his being a nonconformist. The rest wereall true Party members. It was one of the reasons Anton had no use forcommunists.But, again, why did the majority believe it was safer at the tree what with twoalready dead there than back at the tent?Clearly, except for this man, staying at Hill 611 was a communal decision. The rest felt so strongly about staying that, even with two dead already, theyhad beaten this man for wanting to go back. Only when it became so coldthat staying was certain suicide for them also did Igor and Zina leave. And,by then, it was too late. Oddly, the very first to leave then was Igor, the veryman that had likely beaten Slobodin for attempting the same thing. He wondered what must have crossed Zina’s mind when she found firstIgor’s body and then Slobodin’s. She would have known she was the onlyleft and her odds of making it the rest of the way were the same as the othertwo’s. She would have gone on in futile desperation. Their Communist Party thinking had failed them. None of the three had diedcommunally but acting individually and each one reached that decision aboutthirty minutes before dying. Still, up until then the communal decision was to survive out here and thatplan did not involve a fire. Otherwise, all the other missing hikers wouldhave been found dead under the tree. And they wouldn’t let Slobodin leavebecause they needed Slobodan as part of the communal survival plan whichSlobodin correctly judged did not include his own survival.He stood up and looked back at Hill 611.

The others were right there. He was looking at them right now.The others weren’t at the fire because they were building a snow shelter. And they wouldn’t let this man leave because they needed him to help withit. Even if he lived only twenty minutes he would further its construction. Party thinking was that the community state took precedence over theindividual. So if this man died working on the shelter his death would bejustified if the rest of the party lived.So they wouldn’t let him leave.Yet the ones who subscribe to communal thinking are the ones who benefitfrom it. Once Slobodin realized he wouldn’t live out the night, he had leftanyway. And once Igor realized he would not live out the night, he too hadstruck out back for the tent. And when Zina realized she was next, she didthe same, each one giving up on the communal plan with just thirty minutesor so of life left. For these three, the communal plan was not working. And the reason all three turned back was because the snow den they werebuilding wasn’t finished and wouldn’t be finished in the time these three hadleft. Something had gone wrong with the plan for building a snow den. Ithad taken too long, leaving these three with no other choice but to go back,one at a time, each in the last thirty minutes or so of their lives. And by thenit was suicide to even try. All three shared the same similar thinking. Only when they knew it wasabsolute suicide to stay at the tree, and too late to get back, did they even tryto get back.It demonstrated a common thought. Going back to the tent was guaranteeddeath. None was willing to go back while they still had a chance of reachingit – Not the two Yuri’s and not these three. And the others never tried to goback at all. They were still out there.What was in that tent with them? What horror had they confronted? Rustik Slobodin’s autopsy revealed his cause of death.Rustik probably did not know it then when he left but he had a 6 cm long

skull fracture from when he fell from the tree and it was causing him to getsleepy and black out. It might also explain how a drunken Igor had soquickly gotten in so many blows to Slobodin. He would have discovered hehad a problem though in crossing back to their tent on Hill 1096.7. He wouldhave kept falling.And one time he just didn’t get back up. Although his cause of death waslisted as hypothermia, he never knew it.He had no urine in his bladder, consistent with Anton’s belief that he was theone man who had urinated outside the tent. Reluctantly, Anton realized there would be no more bodies to be foundbetween the tent and the tree. The others were somewhere back at Hill 611under the snow in a shelter they had built and possibly never finished.When he informed his superiors of this they ordered him today to terminatethe search until April when the snow would begin to melt and the shelterfound.Anton had no idea just how right he was on where the others were or thehorror that he would eventually find there and that Slobodin was actually thelucky one. For the most violent and horrible deaths were yet to come.

FEBRUARY 2, 1959, 1:00 AMOne Hour to Live

Unaware that they were now the only ones left, the four remaining membersof the team were still at work on constructing a snow den for the night. Theidea of World War II veteran, Alex Zolotarev, they were laying spruce treebranches down on the snow over the frozen brook to sleep on, but the sprucetrees themselves were about 150 meters above them, making each trip forbranches about a 300 meter roundtrip trek in the dark plus whatever distancethey had to walk in order to find a suitable tree. It was a 20 minute hike eachtrip plus the time to find and break boughs. The hill was steep enough that itrequired zigzagging and pausing to traverse up. As a result, they had madevery little progress on the den, likely because only Zolotarev and Nick hadbeen seriously working on it what with Kolevatov and Slobodon havinggiven up after about an hour due to being too cold and going back to the fireby the cedar tree. Although Luda had been a recent addition to the teamreturning with the now injured Kolevatov, she could not possibly have offsetthe loss of both Slobodon and Kolevatov in its construction. Further, shedirected her first efforts towards keeping Kolevatov and the lightly dressedZolotarev alive and not towards completing the den by instead putting itspartial completion to use and put them both on it, laying Kolevatov downbetween her and Zolotarev for warmth while the fully dressed Nick went formore boughs. With Nick now the only one working on it at this point, theirpoor progress continued even after her arrival. At one point all four of themwere on the boughs to try it out and the obvious decision made that it wasstill too small and another trip up for boughs was necessary. This time Ludaand Zolotarev would join Nick. It was a decision that would cost them theirlives.

The den as it was discovered with Luda’s wool strips.

One of the strips Luda had cut off Yuri Kri to wrap around her feet was foundon the boughs and is shown in the picture above, evidence it either came offher foot there or, more likely, she had wrapped it around both of Kolevatov’sfeet who had only homemade wool socks and who was already freezing todeath. They had collected only a minimum amount of boughs for themselvesand agreed it was not enough. As can be seen, the den was not very big,about 6x6 feet and only two people could lay on it comfortably; the outerperson on the right likely lay partly in snow (most probably Luda). They hadmade their shelter in the bottom of an empty stream bed with a solid rockfloor and rocky sides. In spring, it filled with runoff snow water that ransouth but which was frozen over and dry now.Zolotarev picked it because, to be able to collect water, it was the lowestpoint in the area and would keep them below the wind. The branches wouldkeep them off the ice and rocks to prevent them from chilling them. When all four of them still could not fit on it and they made the decision forthree of them to go up for more boughs, Kolevatov was left behind, likelywith both his feet likely wrapped in Luda’s single wool strip shown above.Luda appears to have actually led the way up. Behind her was AlexanderZolotarev, followed by Nick (Who was probably getting tired by now from

doing most of the work by himself.). There was smooth, steep rock on theeast bank they had to climb first, not so steep on the west side but the treesthey needed for boughs were to the east side. After climbing this they thenbegan to zigzag their way up Hill 611. Kolevatov could hear them cutting aswitch back to the right above him when he heard a faint “shush” and thensnow came down from above. And that’s when it all happened and Ludascreamed and bodies were flying everywhere, Luda sailing through the air asif flung with tremendous force.Seeing it, Kolevatov leaped up, hurriedly freed his feet from the wool stripLuda had given him, and tried to come to their help.

MAY 4, 1959The Snow Den

Anton Sergei made his last discovery today. Looking for a snow den, heassumed it would be in the lowest point possible which would be in the brookstream bed. Using a long, sharp probe beneath the snow he had followed thestreambed and had felt something. A deep excavation of the snow led to amanmade construction of a den of boughs that had been recently cut orbroken. It was of the type survivalists use to insulate their bodies against theice cold snow beneath. And it was way deeper than he expected:

Incredibly, it was only 75 meters from the cedar tree. It was perhaps bigenough for two people to lie on, although at least three and probably all fourhad obviously tried. Not far away, he found three bodies. They lay togetherin a stream of melting ice water in a 4x4 meter area next to the bed of firboughs. Their bodies were a horrible sight. They were all missing their eyesand Luda was also missing her tongue and the front of her face was either

torn off or missing. Anton estimated they had been covered by 12 feet ofsnow. The body of Luda was draped over a rock on the west side of thestream bank. It looked like she had slid partway down it in dying and theredid not appear to be any snow between her and the rock, evidence it was bareat the time she died against it and the snow was added on top of herafterwards:

Luda She wore a short sleeve shirt, a long sleeve shirt, and two sweaters and twopairs of pants. Except for the extra sweater this was, again, standard tentwear. The second pair of pants were badly damaged by fire suggesting toAnton that she had taken them from Yuri Kri after he died falling from thetree and landed in the campfire. She had a hat and two pairs of warm socks. A third sock had been added to one foot, probably the one taken from Yuri’sright foot. But she had not taken the burned left sock. Instead, she had takenher second sweater (again possibly taken from Kri) and cut it in two pieces(Yuri Kri’s knife was also found under the tree) to wrap around her feet. One

of these strips Anton found tangled in the boughs of the den.From what Anton could tell, she was wearing even less standard tent wearthan the others when the incident happened in the tent, having only one pairof pants versus two for the others. To her, it was warm in the tent. Shecorrected for this by adding Yuri Kri’s sweater and ski pants when that mandied at the tree.In that case, Yuri Kri died first. That didn’t make sense though. He had skipants on and she didn’t. She should have died first. But Kri could have diedfrom falling from the tree and not from freezing to death. So perhaps shetook his pants and sweater off him after he landed in the fire.Autopsy revealed her right ribs were broken and there was a massivehemorrhage in her heart’s right atrium. There was blood in her stomach shehad swallowed, evidence she was still alive when her tongue was torn out. She died of internal bleeding in about 18 minutes. Her wounds were similarto those created by an “air blast wave” (an explosion). She had literally beensent flying. Lying on his face nearby was Nick Thibeaux-Brignolle. Like Luda he wasfacing west on his stomach. His eyes too were missing. Autopsy showed hedied of a massive skull fracture in about 15 minutes after impact. Like Luda,there was no evidence of any snow between him and the stream bed. It hadalmost all been added later on top of him.He was wearing a wool hat, fur hat, tent shoes, shirt, wool sweater, fur jacket,underwear, sweat pants, cotton pants, and ski pants. He had one pair of woolsocks and valenki footwear.Unlike the others, he was dressed for absolute full winter conditions,including mittens in his pocket.It was doubtful this man was able to add an extra pair of pants, valenki boots,a fur coat and a fur hat, in the time it took Zina to find only one hat and Igorjust one coat, and for the two Yuri’s to find nothing. This man was alreadyprepared to go outside and to do so for quite a while. Yet he hadn’t put onhis mittens. It meant he had gone outside to use his hands.To urinate was the obvious consideration but it must have been absolutely

bitter cold outside for him to dress this warm just to do that.Maybe when the tent ropes came undone he had gone out to retie them? Hewould need his hands for that.But, in that case, the ropes would have been retied. And it would have takentwo people to tie that knot – One to tie it and the other to hold the flashlight. Likely the one holding the flashlight would have corrected any knot mistakeby the other.So he had not dressed like this to go out to retie the tent knot or it would beretied and not untied as found.And, if two went out, then someone else had to be dressed warm too if thatwere the case and no one else was. So he was obviously outside the tentalone at the time of the incident and prepared to stay outside. Antonremembered only one valenki boot track leading from the tent (Slobodon’s). This man had not left the tent with the others. It was why he counted eightssets of footprints instead of nine. Nick had either already arrived here aheador after the others. Either way, he had taken a different route. Nick then was not with the others at the time of the incident in the tent.His is the upper body shown in this photograph:

Lying on his back and just downstream from Nick and also in the water wasAlex Zolotarev (see lower body above). He differed from the other two inthat he was facing east and was on his back. Otherwise, he too was missinghis eyes and had died violently, his chest crushed flat, primarily on the rightside, with exposed, bleeding ribs. Again, there was no sign there was everany snow beneath him judging by the location of his head. He and the othershad died on solid rock.He had a fur coat and fur hat on and Anton thought for a moment he hadfound Nick’s partner who went out to retie the ropes. However, closerexamination showed the furs did not belong to him. They had come from theLuda woman. That explained why Luda hadn’t frozen to death before the two Yuri’s whenshe was wearing only one pair of pants. She corrected the problem of onlyone pair of pants by adding Yuri Kri’s after he died and solved the problemof only two pairs of tent socks by cutting up Kri’s sweater up to wrap aroundher feet and taking his unburnt sock. She already had a fur coat and hat and

which had been keeping her alive up until then. The “smart” girl was ratherwell dressed after all. After she died someone took off her furs and gavethem to Zolotarev.It was hardly Zolotarev who took them off her. He looked like he’d been runover by a bus. The heroic, four time medal winner of World War II had diedthis night celebrating his 38th birthday in the most horrible agony. Hisautopsy also concluded that, like Luda, his cause of death was similar to anair blast wave. He had a compass, indicating he had set the course from thetent. He too was dressed in standard tent clothing; short sleeve shirt, longsleeve shirt, and a sweater but with an added muffler and, instead of two pairsof socks, had only one pair, wearing a warm pair of leather “burka” tentshoes over them. He also differed from the others in that he was wearingthree pairs of pants instead of two and also a hat. Anton saw nothing to indicate Zolotarev had grabbed anything warm to wearon getting out of the tent (Other than perhaps the hat or muffler but it wascommon for him to wear them at all times.). He looked like he was ready tofall asleep and liked to sleep warm as a muffler was for outside wear as wasthree pairs of pants. Like as not, the only reason he hadn’t frozen to deathbefore the two at the tree were because of his shoes, muffler, hat, and extrapair of pants. Even more oddly, he had a camera on his person. Why carry acamera to sleep with you?But it possibly meant he could have taken pictures of what happened insidethe tent (Later, the film was found ruined by water.).After long study, Anton could explain that Nick was dressed for a prolongedstay outside the tent and could explain how Luda was dressed after strippingYuri Kri. But that did not explain how Zolotarev was dressed. He wasdressed to go briefly outside the tent, the only body found to be so clothed. Why?And, more importantly, what killed them?None of the three had frozen to death. And, though they were buried undertwelve feet of snow, that’s not what killed them. An avalanche of 12 feet ofsnow would have suffocated them – yes. Crushed them? No. Twelve feet ofsnow falling on you would be like standing under a twelve foot waterfall orswimming under twelve feet of water. This amount of snow could not have

done this much damage to Zolotarev, Luda, and Nick.

The missing eyes he could explain. Predator birds always peck the eyes outof the dead. They do it to blind their victims. But for all of them to havetheir eyes pecked out meant they had all died with their eyes open, a sign ofsudden death. And that did not explain Luda’s missing tongue. No birdwould do that.Missing eyes and tongues was a sign of ritual mutilations carried out byhumans. That would be Mansi but he had not heard of them doing thisbefore.It was a tough decision of what had happened.Anton noticed though that none of them were on the den boughs. They hadleft them only to die within sight of them. The most obvious reason to leavewas to go up the bank to get more boughs. All three then simultaneously fellor were thrown down here into the stream ravine, Luda evidently biting hertongue off on impact.For them all to do so at the same time suggested an avalanche from above.

The hill was steep enough but a major avalanche that carried them over thebank and twelve feet down should have left snow under their bodies. Thesnow here, although possibly added by a later avalanche, was almost alladded after they were dead. Supporting that, in digging Zolotarev out, hefound the man appeared to be blowing on his right hand to keep it warmwhen he died - Though how he managed to breathe with his chest crushedlike that was a wonder. Still, that meant he wasn’t under snow when he died. It was because he wasn’t buried under snow that Luda’s hat and coat were onhim before he died.So what had happened to them?They had certainly died violent deaths. Zolotarev was almost surely the lastto die and was awake for it – Unfortunately for him. Nick had died fast,probably without ever waking up from his head blow. Luda had beenslammed against the rock she was lying on so hard as to die within minutes,simply sagging and sliding down the rock without moving again. Accordingto the position of her head, she either died screaming in agony or someonehad lifted her head back after she died. Probably the latter, decided Anton,the person who did so removing her fur hat and coat and giving them toZolotarev who obviously was still alive, probably for far longer than hedesired. It must have been an awfully painful, slow way to die.Anton had never seen anyone die like these people before.It looked like they had all been running in the dark, downhill, and fallen,headfirst, into this ravine. Luda had the most speed as she had traveled themost distance. Nick had much less speed and had pretty much gone straightdown, landing on his head. But while Luda and Nick were facing west,consistent with running down the hill, Zolotarev was facing east. And he wason his back, also opposite to the others, and his injuries were to the front ofhis chest and not to his back as they should have been if inflicted by a fall.For Zolotarev’s chest to be crushed when he landed on his back would havemeant something heavy landed on top of him afterwards. It wasn’t a boulderas there was none lying near. So either something jumped on him from 12feet up or he landed on his chest, crushing it, and the same person who putLuda’s hat and coat on him also rolled him over to ease his breathing.What Anton couldn’t explain was the direction Zolotarev was facing. Either

he had turned himself around 180 degrees after the impact or he had run offthe bank above backwards. And thinking all three ran off the bank in the dark because they couldn’t seeit didn’t explain their deaths either. They had built a bed of spruce boughsjust a few feet away to the north in the same ravine. Therefore, they knew theravine was there. Unless they had made a suicide pact to all run into theravine, Zolotarev running off it backwards, there seemed to be no excuse fortheir deaths other than one scary thought – something of enormous strengthhad thrown them down from above and then jumped down on top ofZolotarev afterwards. He shivered at what could have possibly done that and nervously looked atthe bank above him, his hand to his rifle. And that’s when saw it.

FEBRUARY 2, 1959, 2:00 AMTime Runs Out

Alexander Kolevatov hurriedly pulled off the strip of wool Luda had tiedaround both his feet to keep them warm as he heard her short, sharp scream. Getting up off the boughs of the den he hurried to reach where the others hadcome down. Luda was only meters away and had gone sailing off the bankabove to land to his right against the rocky west side of the creek bed. Somesnow had come down as well but not much and, as he went to reach Luda, hepassed by someone covered in snow lying on his face on the bottom of theeast bank. Luda having screamed and being the easiest to find in the dark, hechecked her first. She lay slammed up against the rocks but was not movingat all. Tilting her head back produced no response. Shaking her produced noreaction either. But he could hear muffled gasps and moans in the snow behind him. Turningback he uncovered who it was.It was Zolotarev. Zolotarev was under less than a foot of snow. He uncovered him quickly. He was awake but hurt bad and unable to move. Just rolling him overwracked the man in pain. He could breathe only in absolute agony and couldhardly even answer. Where was Nick?He called for Nick but got no reply. He faced every direction and called butstill got no response.Kolevatov wanted to help, to do something but he was seriously hurt himselffrom the tree fall. It was why he couldn’t help collect boughs. He was theworst possible choice to help Zolotarev, the only one responding. If Nickwas here, he could help.Where was Nick?He gently positioned Zolotarev to ease his breathing. The man could stilltalk but just barely. He was hurting bad. It was his chest, he managed. He

feared his ribs were broken.Meanwhile Luda had still failed to move and remained completely silent. Ashurt as he was there was very little Kolevatov could for either of them.But he knew Igor Dyatlov and Zina were still gathering wood to rebuild thefire back at the tree to guide Slobodin’s return. So he called in theirdirection for help. With the tree only 75 meters north of him, they should beable to hear him.Yet no one answered.They must be off gathering more firewood.By now he was pretty sure Luda was dead and he still saw no sign of Nick.He should move Zolotarev from where he was and onto the boughs of theirsnow den only meters away. Yet Kolevatov’s own neck injury prevented himfrom moving Zolotarev even this short distance and Zolotarev was in far toomuch pain for moving anyway. There was no way for him to get the otherman on it, not by himself and not without putting Zolotarev throughexcruciating pain.Where was Nick?Kolevatov called for Nick again but no one answered. He should be nearby. Where was he?He realized that, until either Nick, Igor, or Zina arrived, it was up to him tokeep Zolotarev alive.He knew Zolotarev would be losing body heat through contact with thesurrounding snow. The man was already half frozen before this evenhappened. It would only get worse now.He made the decision to put Luda’s clothes on him. She no longer neededthem now.He went over to her then and lifted her left arm, pulled it free of her fur jacketand then let her arm fall back. Then he did the same with her right. Tiltingher head back he removed her hat. Then he carried it all over to Zolotarev.He proceeded to put Luda’s hat and coat on him. Zolotarev gasped in severepain at the attempt and could not even sit up. Kolevatov could only raise oneside of Zolotarev’s body at a time to put Luda’s coat on him. Then he had to

lay him back down. Any further attempt to move him would have put him inunbearable agony. Zolotarev asked about Luda when he realized he was wearing her hat andcoat. She was dead, Kolevatov explained. He was asked where Nick was. He didn’t know.Zolotarev was silent then. He had no more questions. His body was brokenand he was slowly freezing to death. In spite of how bravely and confidentlythe 38 year old war hero had faced their situation, he too was now dying. Byrights, he should be frozen to death already. He had lacked both Luda’s andNick’s winter wear and, like Kolevatov, had been slowly freezing to deathsince leaving the tent. Yet this man had never said a word of complaint. When he and Slobodin had given up on the den and returned to fire at thetree, this man had labored on with just Nick against impossible odds to finishthe den he had started. It was only Luda who eventually convinced him to lieon the boughs to get warm again, she and Zolotarev on the outside andhimself in the middle. At that point the leadership passed from Zolotarev to Luda. He was nolonger giving orders. Yet he was willing to take them. When an attempt wasmade to add Nick’s body to the three of theirs on the boughs, Luda agreedwith Nick that it was still not yet wide enough for all of them and the two ofthem should go back up Hill 611 again for more. Although obviously poorlyclothed for the task, Zolotarev insisted on going with them and had even beensecond behind Luda on their way up. He was a true hero and yet somehow,in spite of it, he now lay smashed and dying, his body crushed on the night ofhis own birthday.And Kolevatov had stayed behind on the boughs and had heard it all happen. He was in too much pain to join them even though his life depended upontheir success. And now it was up to him to keep Zolotarev alive until helparrived. The most capable person of them all was now in the hands of theleast capable.So Kolevatov did the only thing he could. He called for help. Eventually,Igor and Zina would return to the tree with their firewood and hear him. Andthen they would come and take over Zolotarev’s care and get him on theboughs.

As for Zolotarev, he seemed content to wait for them too. He showed nopanic and no fear, even gave words of encouragement.Yet he was so cold now he could no longer feel his hands as he blew on themto warm them.For Zolotarev time was slipping away. The man who inspired others, whomade jokes in the face of death, who survived four Russian winters, whocourageously kept on going when it was obvious he would be the next tofreeze, and the only one who knew how to keep them all alive was, himself,dying.And Luda, who had selflessly taken one of her foot wrappings to tie it aroundhis feet, was already dead.And where was Nick?Eventually, his hero’s time simply ran out. Zolotarev was still blowing on hishands to warm them when he died.Kolevatov refused to accept this. He continued to call for Igor and Zina but,unknown to him, they were both dead and gone. He was calling to an emptywood.And where was Nick?Every time he called out for help; no one answered.He just needed to call a little longer for when they came back. After all,Rustik should be back from the tent by now. About forty-five minutes after Zolotarev breathed his last, AlexanderKolevatov joined him in death. He was the last member of the group to do soand, next to Igor, its most experienced member. His head was still turnedtowards the tree, still calling for help for Zolotarev.

Alexander Kolevatov

MAY 4, 1959The Last Body

There was a fourth body…Anton Sergei examined this last man. He was just a little deeper into thesnow bank past Zolotarev. He appeared to be resting beside Zolotarev and tohis right and calling towards the cedar tree. He seemed to have died in painand clearly, in confusion. He had frozen to death. More importantly, he haddeliberately frozen to death. His jacket was unbuttoned. Not only was hisski jacket unbuttoned but he had never stripped Zolotarev’s clothing after hedied. Perhaps he never realized Zolotarev was dead or simply chose not totake them. But, since it was obviously he who dressed Zolotarev in Luda’sfurs, he knew the importance of warm clothing. Yet not only did he not addany extra clothing taken from the others, he had unbuttoned his own and thennot gotten on the insulating boughs which were within easy reach.The last to die, he had welcomed death.He must have died here without ever knowing Nick’s body was only a fewfeet away and just under the snow. Had he known Nick was there, he couldhave stripped Nick of his warmer clothes for himself, particularly his valenkiboots. He was Alexander Kolevatov and he had a broken nose, an open woundbehind the ear, and a deformed neck all from a massive blow to the head. Hehad somehow escaped the violent deaths though of the other three here. And,unlike those that died in this ravine, he had burn marks on his hands andsleeves, a sign he had been at the fire at some time before at the cedar tree. He was wearing a sleeveless shirt, long sleeved shirt, two pairs of pants, anda sweater as standard tent wear. But, over this, he had yet another fleecesweater and an unbuttoned ski jacket. His right foot was covered by a cottonsock under a woolen one which was standard tent wear. Yet his left foot hadthree socks on which was odd. A third pair of socks was worn to go outside

to urinate to be taken back off with any snow on it when one came back in. But why only on one foot?After a long, careful study, Anton realized the obvious. He had come back into the tent after urinating, putting on an extra pair ofsocks to do so. In addition, he had put on an extra sweater and his ski jacketbefore going out. He had just come back in and removed the first of his extrapair of socks when it suddenly happened inside the tent.Anton inspected him further. He had paper and matches in pockets. Hishead was turned towards the den of boughs. He had to know it was there. Yet he never got on it. He never made a fire. He never took Zolotarev’sshoes. He never put on Luda’s hat.Studying him, Anton realized why. This was the man who had gone outsidethe tent and urinated. The tracks of that man had been in socks. Up untilnow, he had thought it had been Rustik Slobodin for Slobodin looked like hehad just come back in and was taking off his valenkis, a sign of goingoutside. But the man who urinated outside was wearing socks and notvalenkis. It wasn’t Slobodin. Slobodin was putting his first valenki on to gooutside next when the incident in the tent happened. That’s why he waswearing only one. He had gotten the first one on of two.To go outside, this man, Kolevatov, had put on an extra pair of socks, anextra fleece sweater and a ski jacket. After urinating, he’d come back in andpulled one sock off his right foot so that the snow didn’t melt on it and wethis foot inside the tent. He was about to take off the other sock too when ithappened. It meant Rustik Slobodin had been right next to him, having justput on one valenki boot to go outside and take his turn too. This man, Kolevatov, was the one who let it in.And with everyone else now dead, no wonder he just lay there, unbuttonedhis jacket, and froze. He had killed himself as certain as suicide. He knewhe’d let it in. He knew the others had all died because of him.He had done it. By unbuttoning the entrance and going out, he had killedthem all.

AFTERMATH The investigation of the mysterious deaths of the nine tourist hikers ended inMay, 1959 with the recovery of the remaining bodies and their autopsies. The discovery of a cut tent, fractured skulls and broken ribs at first suggestedpossible homicide. Because they were all Communist Party members, theirkillers were to be tracked down. But, when the first five bodies recoveredhad all died of hypothermia, three while returning to the tent, natural causeswere soon suspected and the Moscow search called off and left to the locals.Still the Communist Party demanded answers.The violent deaths discovered in three of the last four persons found raisedthe question of how, or what, had caused their injuries to happen to them. Dr.Boris Vozrozhdenny stated that the fatal injuries of the three found byKolevatov at the den could not have been caused by another human being,"because the force of the blows had been too strong and no soft tissue hadbeen damaged". He compared their injuries as “similar to an automobileaccident”. They were also consistent with an “air blast”. This, again, ruledout a human attack (although not a yeti). There was, again, still no evidenceof a crime. Notwithstanding, it being investigated initially as such, each body wasautopsied and their times of their death estimated by the amount of food leftin their stomachs. It demonstrated a timeline spread out over several hours. Further, the cuts in the tent became an object of scrutiny and a police womanworking laundry determined the tent had been cut open from within, exactlyas Anton Sergei postulated, and creating the question of why that wasnecessary. Another mystery appeared. Radiation was discovered on two pants(Kolevatov) and a sweater (Luda) of the victims( Two of the missing hikerswere engineers at the top-secret plutonium production facility at Mayak.) . This was excluded from the case file and entered as a separate report but itsdiscovery raised even more questions. Also, another group of hikers (about50 kilometers south of the incident) reported that they saw strange orange

spheres in the sky to the north (likely in the direction of Kholat Syakhl) onthe night of the incident. Anatoly Shumkov, a student who had camped outnearby on the same night of Feb. 2 with a separate expedition, describedseeing a shining light floating down slowly over the Ural mountain range. The Mansi not only also described this fireball but painted it.This was later suggested by Eugene Buyanov to be a test launch of an R-7 intercontinental missile. The last camp of Dyatlov's group was located on adirect line from Baikonur Cosmodrome (where some test launches of the R-7s were executed) to Chyornaya Guba, a nuclear test site. Yuri Kri took thisphotograph, the last picture found in his camera, using a tripod.

It is possibly the first stage of an R5-M rocket on re-entry (not an R-7 as firstthought) launched that night and, if so, likely hit the ground somewherenearby. Some reports suggest that there was a great deal of scrap metal inand around the area. The investigation file includes an army report datedFebruary 6, or four days after the incident and twenty days before the firstbodies were found, indicating soldiers had been in the immediate area. Theymay have been searching for the first stage of the R5-M missile. This led tospeculation the Army killed them by marching them out, barefoot in thesnow, for having witnessed the secret test. Yuri Yudin believed this verything happened because a cloth “obmotki” was found at the scene which is a

long narrow band wrapped around the shoes of servicemen to protect theirfeet. However, they were faded out of service during World War II and,therefore, likely belonged to Zolotarev. Further, no footprints were found inthe snow to support this and no human could have inflicted the blows onLuda and Zolotarev. And while the first stage of a rocket may have fallen inthe valley below them, that wouldn’t have killed them. Since six of the ninedied from hypothermia and not a test weapon blast, it rules out such a weaponbeing the primary cause of death. Finally, the missile that was launchedoccurred after midnight and by which time Yuri Kri was already dead and sohe could not have photographed said rocket. Lev Ivanov stated, "When E. P. Maslennikov and I examined the scene inMay, we found that some young pine trees at the edge of the forest had burnmarks, but those marks did not have a concentric form or some other pattern.There was no epicenter. This once again confirmed that heated beams of astrong, but completely unknown, at least to us, energy, were directing theirfirepower toward specific objects (in this case, people), acting selectively." After noting the radiation detected, that two of the victims were burned andanother three had suffered air blast damage as well as their “odd skin color”,and the “orange lights” in the sky, he suggested they had been attacked by analien UFO. The Russians would not let him include this in his report.12-year-old Yury Kuntsevich (who would later become head of theYekaterinburg-based Dyatlov Foundation and attended five of the hikers'funerals) also recalled their skin had a "deep brown tan". Others mentionorange marks on their faces.However, the “dark brown” skin is the color skin turns to, post mortem, iffrostbite is present and it first begins as “orange”. Another explanation fororange skin is windburn. In none of the photos taken are any of the memberswearing protective face wear and Zina was the only one found to have such amask. As for randomly burned treetops, these were more likely caused byeither lightning strikes or pieces of the rocket coming down. Adding to the mystery, a nurse recalled eleven bodies were found but thattwo were mysteriously taken away. Indeed, two were removed. BothKrivonschenko and Zolotarev were not buried with the other seven but buriedat the closed Ivanovo Cemetery at Sverdlovsk. The other seven, not nine,

were buried at Yekaterinburg (The nurse evidently believed nine were buriedhere, creating eleven bodies.). When Yuri Yudin, the only survivor of theexpedition, died on April 27, 2013, according to his wishes he was alsoburied alongside the other seven hikers at Yekaterinburg. Other independents have claimed they were killed by an abominablesnowman (yeti). This was theorized in the 2014 documentary, Russian Yeti:The Killer Lives. It is believed by these advocates the hikers slit the downhillside of their tent open to peer out and look at it (Evidently, they decided theyall needed a view by the size of the hole they cut and then decided toevacuate the tent on the side towards it.). Three were then crushed by itsinhuman strength at the den. The original Russian investigation file statesone of the students (Luda) wrote the words, “From now on we know that thesnowmen exist. They can be met in the Northern Urals, next to OtortenMountain.” In addition, as mentioned before, a photograph of an apparentyeti was produced, including its negative.

To determine the authenticity of the photo, the author readjusted the lightingand reprinted it as shown below:

Look at the picture again in lightened shade. The face is dark, the left hand isdark, and a square spot on the front of the stomach is dark. The gray of thetorso should look familiar. It’s the same gray as their ski jackets. Lookclosely, and you can see it’s a person in a gray ski jacket with their hood upand dark mittens. The dark object in front of the waist is most likely theperson’s own camera, carried by a strap around the neck. This is almostexactly the position Luda carried her camera in as can be seen in the picturebelow.

Note she is not only wearing the same gray jacket as the “yeti” photo but alsodarker ski pants which may also appear in the “yeti” photo.How then, do we explain what Luda wrote?The paper she wrote it on was not in her diary. Instead she wrote it in the“Otorten Daily News” which was written in humorous fun. That the four in the ravine were killed by a yeti is partly based on theconclusion that Igor Dyatlov died protecting his face from an attacker andthat he and Rustik had apparently fought something. Two of the firstsearchers claimed seeing a separate set of strange, deep tracks near the tent(Nick’s, who followed the group separately while on outside watch withvalenkis on, making his prints different (“strange”) from the others.).As has been previously shown by his autopsy photos, Igor Dyatlov did notdie protecting his face though he and Slobodan may have been in a fight.

Some claimed Yuri Kri and Yuri Doroshenko climbed the tree to escape thisyeti but this has been disproven by the fact that the branches broken off thetree were burned and, when they ran out of them, the two died ofhypothermia. The closest one can get to a yeti attack are the three smashedbodies found in the ravine who all died violent deaths. Yet the problem withclaiming a yeti killed them is that Kolevatov’s body in the ravine, foundalongside Zolotarev’s, wasn’t nearly so severely hurt and shows no sign ofbeing in an “air blast” or a car accident like the others. It’s easier to explainhis injuries as being received from his having climbed the cedar tree (weknow he was there by his burns from the fire) than from a yeti. But the realproblem for a yeti attack is how close all four lie together. None of themseem to have made any effort to run away from the attack and, instead,simply stood there to await their turn to be killed. This, combined with noother such attacks in the area, makes it unlikely they were killed by a yeti asthere are no yeti sightings before or since in the area and six members diedfrom hypothermia and not attack and no unaccounted for tracks (if we allowfor Nick’s) were found at the tent. Another theory is that two of the members were transporting radioactivematerials to the CIA and the Americans had their picture taken by Zolotarev(He died with his camera.). Suspecting treachery, the Americans killed themall. The radioactive material found (K-40) is not military grade making it ofno interest to the CIA and is consistent with that found in a banana. Thistheory further fails when no foot prints were found at the site of the“Americans” and none of the nine hikers sustained fatal injuries inflicted byother humans.Thus, the case remained unresolved. Years later, six of the actual original searchers held their own meeting on itafterwards with current investigators and concluded they were killed by aSoviet military weapons test. Two missiles were tested in February on the 2nd

and 17th that passed near the site but neither launch was on February 1, thenight the tragedy began.A final scientific explanation was then offered of Infra-sound. According toit, a low vibrating sound wave inaudible to humans known as a “Kármánvortex street” was created by the wind whipping around the mountain and

producing a vibration that panicked the campers. Supporting this, the strongwind in the tent set up photos was out of the south or southwest. Yet theprevailing accepted belief is that the wind was actually from out of the westat the time. If so, the wind was, indeed, curving around the hill at the timethey made camp. A Kármán vortex street is created by wind passing arounda cylinder such as car antenna. If the hill acted as a cylinder then the windwould have alternated from out of the south and north (The photos showsouth.). Thus, it’s possible, even likely, this condition existed at the time.However, the human ear cannot hear the vibrating sound wave. Instead, onlyan object being vibrated by the sound wave can be heard (such as “singing”in telephone wires) and no such vibrating object existed on the hill. Stillthere is evidence a Kármán Vortex Street can sometimes be felt even if notheard. In one study about 22% of humans can still experience anxiety whenexposed to this vibration even though they can’t hear it. That wouldcorrespond to about two of the nine hikers experiencing an uneasy anxiety inthe tent. That there was anxiety in the tent is demonstrated by Zolotarevwriting his humor article to relieve it. The same study however found no oneexposed to the waves panicked as all nine (not just two) campers did. Thus,it would appear this explanation is a failure not only for the limited numbereffected but also to the degree effected. Supporting this conclusion there isno such previous incident of a hillside hiking tragedy as a comparable tosupport such an event before then nor one since. “Paradoxical Undressing” is also a popular explanation where people actuallyundress in the cold due to a feeling a warmth in the final minutes ofhypothermia. While paradoxical undressing is a fact, it is also a fact that noone in the Dyatlov party engaged in it with the possible exception ofKolevatov (the last to die). This misconception is the result of Yuri Kri andYuri Doroshenko being found stripped of their clothes. It was thought theytook them off. Instead, it is known the two women did this to them after theydied.

THEORIES

The Russian’s official report considered the following causes of death:Major Avalanche: It was noted that broken ribs were associated withavalanches (Which is true.). However, the tent was in a “weak” (19 degree)avalanche area. No sign of avalanche was found at the tent site and one couldnot have carried the injured from the tent to where they were found.Small Avalanche: According to this theory the tent was only half buried andthey cut their way out from the downhill side and fled. There was, indeed,almost a foot of additional snow present at the time they left the tent fromwhen they first set it up, a time of four hours or less (The record for snow in asingle night is 76 inches or over six feet set in Silver Lake, Colorado, in1921.). However, whether by snow fall or a snow slide, a foot of snow wouldnot have prevented them from easily digging their way out the tent entrancein mere seconds versus cutting their way out from the roof. Advocates of thispopular theory believe the campers then panicked and fled inexplicablynorthwest and then northeast instead of south for the Auspii Valley and theircached equipment. After somehow realizing their mistake, they tried to turnback to the tent but died. This ignores they steered a perfect compass courseto reach Hill 611 that night and Zolotarev had both a compass and aflashlight. Further, only three of the nine turned back. Thus, they were notthere by the accident of thinking they had returned to the Auspii River. Theyknew they were at Hill 611.The key element of this theory is based upon the assumption that this foot ofsnow arrived quite suddenly and caused a partial collapse of the tent whilethey were in it which set off the panic.The source of this theory is Eugene Polikarpovich Maslennikov’s testimony(one of the leaders of the search). He correctly stated that the tent had been“stretched” (laid out) out using skis and poles driven into the snow. The input(tent entry) was directed to the south and that side of the stretching wasintact, the rope leading to the south ski used as tent support still being tied inplace. But the rope stretching from the north ski was derailed (untied), so the

second half of the tent collapsed. This derailment was caused, according tothis theory’s supporters, by a “mini” avalanche. However, the photographtaken of the tent that day show the skis that supported both the north andsouth stretching were actually still in place and standing. Derailmentoccurred only by the support rope stretched to the north ski having comeuntied. Indeed! The grommet ski too was still standing yet also untied. Thisbook argues they were both untied deliberately after the party exited the tent.It could be claimed though that nearly a foot of snow slid down from aboveand up the west side of the tent roof and that it was insufficient to tip over thesupport skis. The weight of this snow on the roof caused both ropes to comeundone and allowed the tent to collapse. This led to panic inside the tent,they cut their way out, and then fled the site fearing more slides.The theory is supported by the unexpected nearly foot of new snow thecampers escaped in and by two of the stretching knots having come undone. But, if this happened, it did no damage to the tent site whatsoever. Therewould have been about a foot of snow slide up the west roof with a“whooshing” sound, the roof would have then sagged, and that would havebeen it. Even if the ropes came undone, the entrance was still standing andopen. There was no need to cut their way out. In far less than the time itwould have taken for them to cut their way out, they all could have exited bythe front flap which was not only still standing but also right next to the veryspot where they cut their way out of the tent. Less than a foot of snow wasn’tgoing to prevent use of the tent entrance.The official investigation refused to conclude they would have panickedrather than just go out and brush the snow off and retie the ropes. S. Sorgin,a searcher, confirmed there was no avalanche danger - the tent was setaccording to the rules of mountaineering, "On the 4th of March, Axelrod,Korolev, three Muscovites and I rose to the place where the Dyatlov’s tentwas. We all came to the unanimous opinion that the tent was set according totourist and climbing rules. The slope where the tent was set doesn't presentany danger ...”It should be noted that of the three who testified on the possibility ofavalanche only Maslennikov even vaguely supported it and he was actuallybeing held culpable for their deaths at the time for having helped train

and organize the expedition (He was Igor Dyatlov’s advisor.). He wasone of four persons the Communist Party would eventually fire forincompetence in allowing the situation to happen. Thus, he may have beenactually trying to shift blame from himself when he brought up the collapsednorth stretching.Others claim those inside the tent thought they “heard” an avalanche,panicked, cut their way out and fled. While a snow slide itself is pretty quiet,the sound preceding a snow avalanche is a distinctive “whump!” It is thesound of powdered snow shifting on an underlying ice block (The “frozensnow” Dyatlov referred to the day before.). This would be the sound thehikers would have heard. However, it normally requires two feet ofpowdered snow to generate this noise. The powdered snow at the tent wasless than a foot deep whether it slid down or not. If so, no such sound thenwould have been created for the hikers to hear and it still does not requirecutting one’s way out of the tent even if heard.Nonetheless, the “small avalanche” theory remains popular mostly becausethose who propose it are unaware that it was the rescue party that cut the twolarge entrance holes in the tent roof afterwards and instead, believe thoseinside the tent made these large cuts themselves instead of a single, long cut. To not know this gives the appearance there was no other way out when, infact, the front entrance was readily available to them.Further Criminals: The Communist Party was most concerned that they hadbeen murdered by either escaped prisoners or Mansi. No evidence was foundfor either one. Further, the skull fractures of Rustik and Nick were notmanmade and the Mansi here were not unfriendly nor considered the areaholy to them. This was ruled out by the “absence of a guilty party.” They Killed Each Other: Ruled out by photographs showing friendlyrelations, little indication of fighting, and the winners did not take the losersclothes.Tourist Training: It was considered that the group lacked proper trainingand later statistics bore this out. 50 tourists died in 1959, 100 in 1960, and200 in 1961. Tourist training included being able to read a map, use acompass, start a wet fire, and set up a camp and, in groups like Dyatlov’s,perform ski rescue. Setting the tent up facing the wind, the “apparent” faulty

knots tied and the poor fire built at the tree are all signs of improper training. Still, no single human camping rule error has been found that would accountfor their deaths and Igor knew how to dig a fire pit or, failing that, to build afire on wet logs. And two different improperly tied tent knots comingundone simultaneously is a virtual impossibility.The final verdict was that the group members all died because of a"compelling natural force" and tourist travel was then banned to the area forthe next three years and the four persons who had approved the trip wereremoved from their positions. Nikita Khrushchev was provided a copy of criminal investigator LevIvanov’s report by local Communist Party chief Andrei Kirilenko, whichwas afterwards filed away and not publicly released until 1990.

So What Happened? One has to look at simple possibilities and such a possibility should accountfor why the incident has not been repeated. It’s not likely, for example, that aUFO killed them when no such previous attack exists or none since (Theclosest the Dyatlov party comes to aliens is “cattle mutilations” where Ludawas found without her tongue along with the others missing their eyes). Thechange of skin color from orange to a deep tan is, again, actually consistentwith frostbite and windburns. The radiation detected was isotope K-40which is the largest single naturally occurring radioactive substance inhumans. Therefore, its discovery is not unnatural. It may have beenexcessive but it was not unnatural as to the type of radiation. It is certainlynot weapons grade.The lack of evidence also eliminates Russian soldiers or CIA agentsmurdering them because there are again no foot prints, no bullet holes, and nohuman could inflict the damage done to Luda, Zolotarev, and Nick. This iscompounded by the difficulty anyone would have in finding them at nighthigh on the side of Hill 1096 when they had no outside fire by which to beseen.

The first step in solving the case is to determine if Igor Dyatlov was campedon Hill 1096 on purpose or not. Many believe he was there on the west sideof the pass by accident as the map of his route below clearly demonstrates hewas headed for the middle of the pass. It is also known that they left inincreasing overcast that would have threatened their getting lost if theycouldn’t see their landmarks. The only visible compass landmarks availableto them as they entered the pass was Hill 1096 to the left and Hill 805 to theright. Igor’s practice was to steer directly for a landmark (such as Hill 805for which he steered the previous day). Initially, the morning they left Hill663 for the pass entrance their photos show clear visibility. They could haveseen either hill. They should have steered for one hill or the other because,regardless of how bad the visibility became, once they reached either hill,they would have known where they were. Of the two hills, Hill 805 was thelower and most easily reached objective whereas Hill 1096 the higher andmost easily seen in overcast.Yet Igor did not set a compass course that day for either hill. This mapshows his actual compass course:

If you’re looking at this map in black and white, you’ll see two lines that startside by side at the southeast (lower right) corner of the map, one of whichgoes off the northwest (upper left) corner of the map. The one that goes offthe upper left is their planned route. Their actual route is the other line whichis first to the right and then left of the planned route (It passes through the “a”of “Xoram” which is where they pitched the tent.). Where their actual route is to the right of their planned route occurred whenthey decided to bypass Hill 663 and steer directly for Hill 805 the day before(The reader can see they gave up and headed for Hill 663.). And where theiractual route is to the left of their planned route is where they were camped onthe side of Hill 1096. They started out from their equipment cache 300 meters west (left) of Hill663 above. But, instead of steering north for the west side of Hill 805 asplanned (right line), they steered exactly halfway between hills 805 and1096.7 (Again, passing through the “A” of “Xoram”). That is a northwestcompass course and represents a complete diversion from their training as

they are not steering for a visible landmark. By steering for the middle of the pass which saved time and distance versussteering for either Hill 1096 or Hill 805.But how would they know where they were if visibility reduced (which itdid) in the middle of the pass?There’s only one way. They would know when they reached the northeastslope of Hill 1096.7 because they would begin to ski downhill provided theymaintained their compass course.They had just invented a new way of navigation. Instead of steering for highpoints, they would steer for low points.Did this kill them?No. It was actually a good plan. They had obviously discussed such a planand agreed to it in order to set out that morning headed to apparentlynothing. Otherwise, someone would have noticed they weren’t headed foreither Hill 805 or Hill 1096 (Both were visible that morning.). Instead, theywere going to save time by steering right down the middle of the pass.But, as the weather got worse and visibility reduced, the one thing they darednot do was drift left or right of the northwest compass course. To do so wasan invitation to get lost. They had had to keep steering northwest until uphillchanged to downhill. Only then would they know where they were. Did they get lost or wander off course?No. They stopped and camped that night at the “r” of “Xoram”. Theysteered a perfect course to here from Hill 663. They neither “wandered” norwere “lost”.Although this course took them to a terrible campsite, they didn’t seem to bevery bothered by that possibility. They either thought they would make itfurther northwest of it that day or they were willing to pitch tent on an openslope in a windy pass.Either way, by steering a straight line down the middle of the pass they wereshortening the distance to get through and, therefore, saving time.And we know saving time was a factor in their decisions because it was thevery reason they steered for Hill 805 the day before instead of Hill 663.

That they didn’t make it very far that day was due to the fact that thenorthwest course they steered may have been shorter but it was also steeper. To get an even better understanding of the elevations we can use this aerialphotograph. It was taken from the east side of the pass:

The Dyatlov party arrived from the left hand side of the photo (south) andwere traveling towards the right hand side of the photo on a northwestcourse. They crossed over the ridge between hills 1096.7 and 805 becausethat was not quite as steep as the grade between hills 805 and 905 (One cansee above how steep the slope was between 805 and 905.). The photo states“Locations are approximate” and the tent is shown as slightly downhill fromthe ridge they passed over. In reality it was higher up as that the skiersactually skied uphill after crossing the ridge and not down. The distance they

traveled from the top of the ridge to where they sited their tent that night isabout two miles in a straight line, likely a little further on skis as they wereskiing around the outside curve of the hill.The author made his own route interpretation using the photo below:

This photo was taken from the southwest edge of either Hill 905 or Hill 805while facing Hill 1096. The two white lines cross over the ridge betweenHills 1096 and 805. The bottom line shows the lowest point on the ridge theycould have crossed it at and which is actually quite a bit closer to Hill 805than Hill 1096.7. Igor Dyatlov tried to steer this bottom route the day beforewhich leads to Hill 611 but gave up on it, being unable to reach the top of theridge before dark. The next day, he crossed using the upper line. As one cansee, not only does that route not go to Hill 611 but, once over, is slightlyuphill versus downhill. Since Igor’s map showed the route to Hill 611 wasdownhill and he was headed uphill, he had to know he was not headed to Hill611 and that he was the east slope of Hill 1096.7.

So, once again he wasn’t lost.And whether he made it as far northwest as desired (he didn’t) is irrelevantbecause, no matter how far northwest they made it that day, they would notreach trees or, more importantly, firewood.So, when they left that morning from Hill 663, they knew, at the end of theday, they’d be camping without firewood.They obviously felt they didn’t need firewood as they had brought along thestove with firewood (without firewood, it was useless weight.). Look at themap again:

After camping out above the “r” of “Xoram” they suddenly left the tent andsteered a direct course for Hill 611. Hill 611 was the nearest firewood. Thehikers had suddenly gone from thinking they didn’t need firewood, tothinking they needed firewood and in less than four hours from pitchingcamp. Something had gone wrong with their plan to use the stove. They

would now freeze to death seeking warmth.And they obviously weren’t lost as they were able to find Hill 611. But, atfirst, they couldn’t see it after abandoning the tent and so first movednorthwest, looking for the northeast slope of Hill 1096. That they couldn’tsee it at first is consistent with weather conditions that had dumped nearly afoot of snow on them (Much of it wind driven.).They were trudging northwest in their socks in snow and miserable weather. Something had gone seriously wrong. This was life or death. Yet theirnorthwest course indicates they were mindful of getting lost. Even dressedonly in socks, they were not in panic. Once the weather cleared enough tosee Hill 611, they turned and headed for it.But what had gone wrong with their plan to use the stove?It is assumed by all researchers that the stove was not used at all on the slopebecause it was found stowed in the tent and not in its operating position. Without the stove, it would have taken them at least six hours to boil water. Yet in just two hours they had hot cocoa and heated ham and were sittingwith their shoes off in the tent in standard tent wear in the middle of a snowstorm with minus 20 degree Celsius temperatures and even with the draftytent flap facing the wind.The only possible way for them to be in such comfort is if they lit the stovejust as Zolotarev reported they did that day in his Otorten Daily News whenhe tells us it was assembled that day in “record time” (Allowing for half anhour to set up the tent and 1.5 hours (or less according to Zolotarev) to get thestove assembled, they would have had it in operation at 7:00 PM. It’sestimated they had dinner at 7:00 PM.).Some search party members say they saw firewood and some say theydidn’t. One researcher finally found reference to one “chunk” of wood thatwas found outside the tent.How do we interpret that?Suppose the stove was found to contain burnt wood. Since it’s inside thestove, no one would see wood inside the tent at all. And those who openedthe stove would see only burnt ash. So the only wood to be found would bethe chunk outside the tent. And why is it there? If Igor burned up all but the

one chunk, a piece too small to save, in stowing the stove after dinner hewould have thrown it away outside the tent in order not to have to carry it thenext day (The reason they were lightening their load.). Thus finding a chunkof wood outside the tent is actually evidence they brought wood with them asit should not be there otherwise. And the lack of finding any more wood isevidence they burned all the rest up that night. So the failure to find firewoodis meaningless as to whether the stove was used or not. Rather, the onlyargument the stove wasn’t used is actually that it was found stowed. But thisdoesn’t exclude that it wasn’t used first and then stowed. Stowing the stoveafter dinner was the only way to eliminate the draft from the front tent flapthrough which the tent stovepipe vented out. So, if they wanted to keep thetent warm after dinner they had to stow it and remove the smoke stack ventfrom facing the entrance. That the stove was still hot when stowed isdemonstrated by someone having placed a drink of cocoa by it to warm it.Evidence of Unburned Wood in the Stove:Since Igor is deliberately on the side of Hill 1096.7 where he knows there’sno wood then it reasons he brought wood with him as the chunk of woodfound attests.That piece of wood was not partially burned. Igor never put it in the stove. Yet he also never tossed out any partially burned pieces either meaning heleft them (if they existed) in the disassembled stove and which is no longervented outside.He must have assembled the stove (as Zolotarev reported) and then lit it witha minimal amount of wood and cooked dinner. Igor then disassembled it andput it away, throwing away the last piece of unused firewood as useless so asto not have to carry it the next day. Stowing the stove still hot allowed themto remove the drafty stove pipe from the entrance.With the draft at the entrance now stopped up (including with Dyatlov’s ownski jacket), the inside of the tent remained warm as the disassembled stove isstill giving off enough heat for someone to place a cup of cocoa by it to warmit. This is why no one in the tent is wearing their tent shoes except Zolotarev. It’s not cold enough in the tent yet to put them on. Yet Zolotarev is wearingmore than just this. He also has an extra pair of pants on, a muffler, and ahat. Why?

Because he has the compass. He’s ready to go outside and take a compassheading on Hill 611 as soon as the weather breaks and Nick is outside the tentin full winter gear watching the weather for him. If they take such a compassbearing, they’ll know where they are on Hill 1096.7 by looking at a reversebearing on their map from Hill 611 and know how close they are to thenortheast tip of it. That will allow them to continue on the next day even inzero visibility.They also have a candle or two lit inside the tent because Zolotarev can see towrite The Otorten Daily News and someone could see that was drinkingcocoa. And with no one else having put on their tent shoes we know thecandle(s) are still lit (Who wants to have to find their sleeping shoes in thedark?). No one has gone to bed. But they’re getting ready to. AlexanderKolevatov has put on an extra sweater, his coat, and an extra pair of socksover his standard tent wear of one pair of cotton socks with a pair of woolsocks over that to go out and urinate. Slobodin is also about to take his turnoutside next, getting his valenki boots out to put them on. Yuri Kri and YuriDoroshenko are the least warmly dressed of all, evidence both of them are inthe front half of the tent with the still hot stove.The wind is blowing straight into the tent entrance as Alexander Kolevatovsteps outside to do his business. He doesn’t know it yet but he has justconsigned them all to death. The gust he let in as he opened the front flap hasblown through the still glowing embers of the stove, relighting it. This isunknown to anyone at the time.Unaware, he finishes his business and comes back in and, again, the windenters the tent. One of these two gusts blew out the candle(s). The stovewood burns even brighter now but unseen inside its cylinder as Kolevatovstuffs Igor’s jacket back in place to plug the draft but leaves it to Slobodin tobutton the tent flap closed on his way out. He and Slobodin are both sittingdown now in the front half of the tent, Kolevatov to take off his snowcovered socks (removing one) and Slobodin to put on his valenkis (gettingone on) in the dark.And that’s when it happened.The smoke from the stove is no longer vented outside by its chimney whichhas been taken off and the tent suddenly begins to fill with smoke.

Although it’s worse in the front half where the stove is, the prevailing draft ofthe unbuttoned flap sends it into the back half as well where it cannot escape. There is coughing and stinging eyes. Igor and Zolotarev both go forward toconfront the stove in the dark to put the fire out. But it doesn’t work. It isn’t just the revived flame putting off smoke but theglowing embers and the wind at the unbuttoned flap is not only fanning itfurther but pinning the smoke inside the tent. The awareness of the problemwould have been instant. Their eyes blinded and burning by the smoke andalready in the dark and the hot stove stowed, Igor and Zolotarev can’t put itout. Instead, knowing smoke rises, Igor orders Yuri Kri to cut a slit in theroof of the tent to let it out (he had the community knife and was in the frontsection according to his tent wear and previous diary entries) as Kri wouldnot have dared cut Igor’s tent without Igor’s order. But Yuri Kri starts thecut too low and is told to make it higher. So a second cut is made at the veryhighest point of the tent to let it out since opening the entrance tent flapdoesn’t allow the smoke out against the prevailing wind but actually holds itin and fans the stove further.Anyone who has ever lit a fire in a chimney with a closed damper knows howquickly a room can fill with smoke and a tent is very small space. Thesituation is rapidly becoming unbearable and the person in the tent mostsuffering is Zina.Recall Zina’s body (as well as Slobodin’s) was found with a nose bleedassociated with hot, dry air. She is suffering from smoke inhalation. Igor isin love with Zina (giving her his socks and carrying her picture) and he isalso drunk. The smoke isn’t venting fast enough and she’s in danger ofasphyxiation. Igor takes the knife away from Yuri Kri and abruptly drags theblade backwards and downwards all the back to the divider to allow them all,especially Zina, to breathe.With that cut he probably killed them all.But they don’t know that yet. For now, they all hurriedly exit the tent by thecut, gasping for air. Those who exit last grab warm clothing while waitingtheir turn to get out, meaning the two Yuri’s exited first (consistent with theirbeing in the front half of the tent). With the stove still smoldering, thedecision is made to asphyxiate the stove by collapsing the tent. Thus, both

rope stretchings were untied and that was how the tent was found.

Yet it didn’t work. With the entrance still standing and unbuttoned, it merelyconfined the smoke to a smaller space. It’s so concentrated and intense nowthat anyone trying to reach inside the tent to grab their boots or whatever willbe met by a face full of even more concentrated smoke and driven away.They wait and they wait but the situation doesn’t change. And now the twoYuri’s are getting cold.So an attempt was used to reach inside the tent using a ski pole for clothing,almost certainly by Yuri Kri, one of the two coldest at the time (The otherbeing Yuri Dorshenko). We suspect it was Kri because, whoever tried to cutthe end off of the ski pole used a knife and Kri had the knife. Further,whoever tried to cut the pole had been drinking (Kri had the second highestlevel of liquid in his body) because they failed to think of just turning ski polearound and using the other end. Thus, alcohol was playing a part in Kri’s andIgor’s decisions. It doesn’t take long before they’re all cold standing outside in subzerotemperatures in their tent wear. Eventually, they realize they might freeze todeath first before the stove ceases smoking and so decide to go elsewhere forshelter until it does.The reader will recall Anton Sergei counted eight sets of footprints leavingthe tent when there were nine hikers. He even noted how one was wearingjust one valenki boot (Slobodin).Who is the missing ninth person?It’s Nick. He’s wearing two valenkis. But Sergei never identified anyonewalking away wearing two valenkis nor did he count nine tracks. However,two other searchers did identify a different set of tracks (two valenkis)separate from the others. These, again, belong to Nick.Why is Nick not joining the other eight?It’s simple. Nick, being properly dressed, is staying behind in order to watchthe tent and be able to tell the others when it’s safe to come back.But this plan doesn’t last long. The flaw is soon realized when Zolotarev’sflashlight dies on the way to Hill 611. How will Nick be able to find them in

the dark to tell them when it’s safe to come back?So, when this happened, Nick joined them. It’s a 500 meter diagonal walk. One missed by Anton Sergei.During the episode in the tent, both Luda and Zina (and Igor in going backfor Zina) grab clothing on the way out that is only found in the rear of thetent. Yuri Kri, Yuri Doroshenko, Rustik Slobodin, Alexander Kolevatov andlikely Alexander Zolotarev all grabbed nothing in escaping. Every one ofthose who failed to grab clothing can be shown to be in the front half of thetent. There seems to be a connection between grabbing nothing and being inthe front where the stove is at the time of the accident.Remember! Something was preventing them going back in the tent. Andwhatever that something was, it didn’t leave footprints. This is a descriptionof smoke. And the cuts in the roof and collapsing the tent are all consistentwith trying to vent that smoke out.The number one cause of death related to fires is smoke inhalation. Anestimated 70% of fire deaths are the result of smoke inhalation injuries ratherthan burns. The victim is overcome before they can escape the fire. Thisoccurs when the smoke in inhaled in a confined space. The recommendedtreatment for person exposed to smoke inhalation in a confined space is100% oxygen. This is because the effects of smoke inhalation are not shortand generally last a minimum of 4-6 hours and can even last days. For thepurposes of the Dyatlov party the signs of smoke inhalation would have been1) prolonged confusion 2) skin color changes and 3) nosebleeds all of whichcan be found in the victims. All of these symptoms also increase at higheraltitudes such as Dyatlov Pass due to less oxygen. Burning wood or charcoalhas been identified as “an unfortunate and preventable cause of death incampers who use stoves in their tents without adequate ventilation” (EMSWorld, April 7, 2011). One of the other symptoms of smoke inhalation(“hypoxia” or lack of oxygen) is sweating. The muscles resort to anabolicrespiration to make up for the lack of oxygen which can the victims feelwarm or hot. This, combined with confusion, may have caused the Dyatlovparty to initially underestimate how cold they really were. Similarly, alcoholcan make a person feel warm because it dilates surface blood vessels whilefurther impeding the party’s judgment of the temperature.

One of the facts supporting this smoke inhalation theory is that Igor’s stovewas homemade and was of known faulty design. Wood stoves that areactually designed for tents are either vented vertically through the roof peakor out the side at a 45 degree upward angle. Igor’s was vented horizontallywith a 90 degree right angle turn – the poorest possible design. He alsovented it out through the tent door. This too is no longer done (If ever.). Modern wood tent stoves, unlike Igor’s, are not only effectively ventedupwards but also constantly vented. Modern designs are only broken downwhen the tent is broken down. Until then, they continue to vent. Windentering a tent and restarting a wood stove today would have no effect on theoccupants as the venting stove pipe would still be in place. The incident withIgor Dyatlov’s stove had never occurred before or after because he had theonly such stove design like it (Building it himself.). It was literally a “killer”design.Thus, the accident that killed nine persons in 1959 became the first and onlyone of its’ kind and was never repeated for the stove design was neverrepeated.The deaths of the three in the ravine was never actually treated as a mysteryin 1959 beyond ascertaining that it wasn’t murder (Another human could nothave inflicted such damage.). An “air blast” simply means they were thrownas if by an explosion with their bodies propelled through the air. Luda, Nick,and Zolotarev all have injuries consistent with avalanche and with beingcarried off the bank 12 feet above them. That bank (Hill 611) was, indeed,consistent with avalanche conditions. This we can see by the next twophotographs which show they had moved into a potential avalanche area:

Site of the “Den”, the furthest man on the left is photographing the others. The second man on the leftis standing on the den of spruce boughs and the other three near where the four bodies were found.

Notice, the missing section of snow above their heads, which may have fallen into where they’restanding now.

This photo shows the slope of the hill behind them to be on the order of a 35degree angle when 25 degrees is enough to create a snow avalanche. Oddlyenough, by moving off Hill 1096 to these trees, the hikers had moved from alow avalanche area of 19 degrees slope to a high avalanche area:

Notice, the hikers had moved to the base of a very steep slope (see circle) from their originalcampsite.

This was not stupidity on their part as much as bad luck of the draw. Mostavalanche victims start the avalanche that kills them by disturbing the snow. In this case, the hikers building the den had repeatedly climbed up the hill insearch of spruce boughs for their den evidently by zigzagging their way up it.This repeated and constant zigzagging disturbed the snow beneath their route.The witness to what happened next would have been Alexander Kolevatovwho was handling the situation the worst of them all (even though he had aski jacket, he had the same footwear as Yuri Kri and Yuri Doroshenko) afterhaving been injured falling from the tree. On at least one previous occasionhe had been back at the fire with Luda and Slobodin to possibly to warmhimself and to pull Kri out of the fire. And now he had been left on theboughs of the den to stay warm by his three comrades that left to get moreboughs. On their last such climb, while angling to their right to climb thehill, the snow section they were standing on broke loose and they sliddownhill on it. Although this snow slide was actually trivial, the ravine fall itcarried them over (12 feet to solid rock) was not. All three of them landedon their right sides (Being angled to the right for ascent). Luda picked up themost velocity and landed furthest downstream, suggesting she was leadingand the highest up.

That she was leading suggests it was by her urging that the other two madethe last climb to save Kolevatov. It was Luda who took one of the woolstrips she’d wrapped her own feet in and then gave it unselfishly toKolevatov as she tried to keep him warm on the boughs of the den. And shenow led the next climb to save him. They were on a steep switchback to theright when the snow beneath them gave way. All three went over the ravinefalling to their right in the direction they were climbing. Yet Zolotarevfought uphill (Called “swimming” an avalanche) and so went over feet first,accounting for him facing the opposite direction as Luda and Nick. “Swimming” an avalanche will reduce impact which is why Zolotarev wasthe last to die of the three. It was Zolotarev who was a ski instructor andwould most likely know this technique.Both Luda and Nick were slammed onto the bare rocks below, hitting rightside first and facing west in the direction of the avalanche (There wasactually very little snow as only Nick was buried.). Zolotarev’s experienceallowed him to go off feet first rather than head first. Unfortunately, he stillwent over the edge. Though he lacked Luda’s velocity he still landed on hischest on a rock below in the ravine, crushing his ribs. As for Nick, medicaldoctor B. A. Vozrojdenny stated “he could have been dropped from theheight of a full grown man. He might have slipped and fell. However, thedeep fracture of the skull suggests that his injuries are similar to a victim thatwas dropped with a great speed and strength from a quickly moving car.”This same “great speed” propelled Luda clear to the opposite side of theravine. You can see the rock Nick’s head landed on just to the right of hishead as the snow carried him over the bank below:

Again, Nick’s is the top body and Zolotarev’s body the lower. Nick’s headshows signs of impact with a rock from a 6-10 foot fall which is consistentwith the 12 foot bank with his hands out in front trying to absorb impact ofthe fall. Nick’s head hit the rock to his immediate right while Zolotarevprobably landed on the rock between them, chest first, breaking his ribs. Kolevatov then rolled him off it to his right to ease his breathing. The melting water runoff shown above did not exist then.Nick died without even knowing it, hitting the right side of his head as can beseen above. It is unlikely Luda died painlessly but swiftly.Either way, she and Nick were both dead within 18 minutes but not soZolotarev. He died a slow, agonizing death about 45 minutes later and, likethe others, it was not from hypothermia.At a later point in time, the ravine filled with 12 feet of snow, eitherwindblown or a second avalanche. The reason for this assumption is thatthere doesn’t appear to have been much snow under them when they died and

that it was added afterwards. Further, if they were buried under 12 feet ofsnow, how did Alexander Kolevatov find Luda to take her fur hat and coatoff her to give them to Zolotarev, also under 12 feet of snow?Hence, the three came down off the top of the bank and fell into the ravinealong with about a foot of snow which is consistent with all the facts. This iscalled an “avalanche board” as it is rather like standing on a surf board. Itwas enough to bury Nick but no more.Kolevatov himself died a helpless, hopeless death by suicide. Both Luda andZolotarev were first alive when he found them in the dark (probably by theircries of agony.). Luda was likely crying out at first for Kolevatov to find herbut likely fell silent very soon afterwards for Kolevatov made no effort toease her pain and focused his attention on keeping Zolotarev alive insteadthough he knew where she was (To the extent of taking Luda’s hat and coatfrom her for Zolotarev.).When Zolotarev died after Luda, one would think Kolevatov had to know it. He could, and should, have taken Zolotarev’s clothes and shoes for himselfand moved back on to the boughs. He had paper and matches. Yet he didneither. He willingly died where he was, even unbuttoning his coat to hurrydeath. With all his comrades dead from his opening up the tent flap and leftall alone, he lost all will to live. Although Zolotarev likely died a full hourbefore he did, Kolevatov seems to have refused to admit it, staying by himand still calling for help until the end.

THE MYSTERY PHOTO

We have ruled out Yuri Kri’s last picture as being of a first stage rocket re-entry as he was already dead when the rocket was launched. Most considerthe photo to be the product of exposure and that may be true but anotherresearcher took the same photo above and produced this:

It’s a man crouched on his knees in front of a bright, smoking flame. Heappears to have a mustache and a heavy beard as well as a hat with a straightbrim and, in his left hand, is a flashlight turned on and pointed slightly downat the camera.While readers have to be careful about drawing any conclusions about thisphoto, as even “clouds in the sky” can be interpreted as “faces”, the camerathat took this picture was actually found inside the tent where it was left onFebruary 1. Therefore, it can’t be ruled out that this picture wasn’t takeninside the tent that same night while Kri was still alive to take it. If so, it ispossible to identify the man photographed.It’s Zolotarev and he’s looking at Igor’s suspended stove inside the tent. Here he is as he was dressed that night, absent the ski coat:

We see the same straight hat line (a beret) and mustache and his flashlight isattached to the left side of his coat, the same hand it’s held by in the mysteryphoto. He doesn’t have a beard but he is wearing a muffler (The same as hewas found in) which could be mistaken for a beard in the photo or it could besmoke producing the beard.Curious to see if there were any other “matches” in this photo to Zolotarev,this author examined the flashlight in the photo. Zolotarev was known to usea Chinese flashlight so the author obtained a set of photos of a 1959 eraChinese flashlight and then zoomed in on the photo of the “flashlight” in thelast photo taken by Yuri Kri on February 1. Here is a magnification of thephoto of the flashlight lens Kri took compared to the Chinese flashlight:

The 1959 Chinese flashlight also has a round interior lens with an eight sidedlens cover on the outside:

Count them up. This 1959 era Chinese flashlight has exactly eight sides to itlens cover, the same as that in Yuri Kri’s photo. And the thickness of thelens rim cover of this flashlight is exactly the same as that of Zolotarev’sflashlight in the photo.The author then looked for further evidence this photo was taken inside thetent. Along the upper right corner of the photo a grid pattern appears withtwo horizontal strings or cords. They are intersected by up to five verticalstrings of the same material, two of the resulting four square patterns measureexactly the same across and all are the same height. It’s possible the cameracaptured something such as the stitching in the tent roof. If it is the stove in the photo then the stove pipe is not attached to it which isexactly what appears to be the situation that happened in the tent. With thewind outside entering the tent and restarted the stove wood burning, itbrought Zolotarev forward to look at it with his flashlight.To put the stove embers out, it was released from its suspension from thegrommet rope and dropped into its stowage bag to smother it, which isexactly how the stove was found.The counter argument to this being the stove in the photo, however, is that itincludes obvious film scratches that may have contributed to the image plus

the camera that took this picture was mounted on a tripod at the time, makingunlikely to be used inside the tent.But, still, the coincidences are intriguing.

CONCLUSION The evidence shows the hikers cut their way out of the tent rather than use theentrance. Although there was nearly a foot of snow outside the entrance, ithad not prevented Kolevatov from going outside or Slobodin from planningto follow. Ergo, they were not trapped in the tent. What was trapped in thetent was the smoke. Opening the tent flap to the wind would have simplyblown the smoke into the rear of the tent and further fanned the stove fire. Sothe tent flap posed a problem when it was not re-buttoned in the dark byadmitting wind. The solution was an incision cut in the roof to let the smokeout. This first incision was not high enough and a second begun. This wouldhave to be done quickly with smoke building in the tent or everyone insidewould be threatened by smoke inhalation. Yet it is known that it was actuallynot done quickly at all. The knife did not penetrate the canvass until afterrepeated jabbing’s. This would have had to be repeated once again with thesecond cut. In this delay the conditions inside the tent could, and should,have turned deadly. When the cut was begun, it was not with the plan ofusing it to get out of the tent but for using it to let the smoke out of the tent. But a crisis was quickly reached as choking on smoke is actually more fatalthan fire itself. Those in the rear of the tent (including Zina) would be in themost danger of being overcome. One sign of smoke inhalation is nosebleeding and two of the campers (including Zina) were found with nosebleeds.Alcohol almost certainly played a part in Igor Dyatlov’s thinking just as it didin Yuri Kri’s. No one would have dared cut into his tent without hispermission so the obvious order to do so came from him. It demonstrates anuninhibited response consistent with the effects produced by alcohol to saveZina. One of the clues the tent was filled with smoke is that it had to belaundered by the police (It was the woman who cleaned it who discovered ithad been cut from the inside.). The goal was to look for blood but there wastoo much smoke soot in the tent to do so and so it was cleaned. The secondclue it was smoke is the lack of any footprints outside the tent to indicatedanger anywhere but inside the tent. Smoke does not leave tracks. The third

clue it was smoke is the speed with which they exited. Smoke can overcomea person in seconds. The fourth clue is that the people inside couldn’t seevery well when, shortly before, Zolotarev could see well enough to write theOtorten Daily News.A summary of the evidence they had lit the stove follows:

1) An unburned chunk of wood was thrown away which they wouldonly have carried with them for burning.2) It was quite warm inside the tent when minus 20 degrees F outside.3) They had successfully made dinner in just about the time it wouldtake to put the stove in operation. This could not have been donewithout the stove.4) Zolotarev’s news for the day included how the stove had beenassembled in “record time” that day and even names those whoassembled it.5) Zolotarev’s news included the stove and one blanket were thenbeing used to keep them warm.6) Someone had set a cup of cocoa beside it as if for reheating.7) The chunk of wood Igor threw away was insufficient for a fire yetno more wood was found, an indication he had burned all the rest thatnight.8) Strips of ham were found on a serving cloth inside the tent. Unlessthe stove had been lit, they would have been serving frozen strips ofham as no other means they had would warm it (see #10 below).9) Yuri Kri had previously been voted to sleep in the front half of thetent with the stove where it was much warmer. Except for YuriDoroshenko, Yuri Kri was more lightly dressed than the others, a signhe was in the front of the tent again with the stove, probably with YuriDoroshenko.10) Without a fire, they would have been forced to eat dry biscuits,smoked brisket, sugar, and maybe precooked sausage. The stoveallowed for condensed milk, canned meat, and hot cocoa, all present andfound to have been used.11) Slobodin’s jacket having caught fire the night before proves thestove was a fire hazard.12) The tent was found collapsed due to both support ropes being untied

(The two skis they were tied to were both still standing.). They becameuntied after the hikers evacuated the tent or they simply would havebeen tied back up again if it happened before then. Some postulateheavy snowfall on the tent afterwards caused the ropes to come untiedand this author also considered the possibility that the first searchhelicopter that found the tent blew it down with the force of its bladesby coming too close. However, there was no sign of any snow at allhaving fallen on the tent since and evidence that what was there wasblown away by wind. As to the helicopter there is no mention by thecrew that the tent was standing when they found it and it is veryunlikely an experienced helicopter pilot would fly very low in a passdue to the danger of updrafts (Which is why Anton Sergei’s helicopterdid not land on Mount Otorten even though their search started there.). The author concluded the ropes came undone by human means, eitherby faulty knots or, more likely, by deliberately untying them. Mostresearchers consider the hikers to be experienced and probably capableof tying a proper knot. They had not only practiced setting the tent uptogether before leaving but had also set it up on the trail several timessince. Those members unable to tie a knot likely would have beenfound and corrected by the night of the disaster. Further, the twophotographs taken of the tent being set up show the person correctlysiting the ski supports so one might assume he also knew how tocorrectly tie the knots. Finally, the odds of a person even incapable oftying two knots having both come undone at the same time are low(Assuming a different, random knot was used each time.). However,both knots being untied deliberately is completely consistent with thetent being filled with smoke at the time as collapsing the tent offered thefastest means of clearing it. Thus, the tent found collapsed is entirelyconsistent with the evidence.

The evidence is clear that Igor intended to take the stove along to use. Hehad the opportunity to lighten his load of it at Hill 663 but did not do so. Heset a course to the east slope of Hill 1096.7 where there were no trees andwhere it would take him six hours to boil water without the stove. Not onlydid he take the stove but brought wood with it as evidenced by the piece he

threw away. Since he brought the stove and wood to use, it reasons he used itjust as Zolotarev wrote.Igor’s stove was of faulty, unsafe design, being improperly vented and whichultimately filled the tent with smoke. The incident has never been repeatedbecause no tent designed woodstoves use Igor’s venting system.The tent was considered so unsafe that six of the nine persons that nightnever would go back to it, preferring death to returning to the tent. And, ofthe three that did decide to go back, they waited so long to do so that theydropped dead after making it no more than a quarter of the way back. Thus,they only headed back to the tent when it was guaranteed death not to and bythen they had waited so long by then it was too late. If so, it reasons the danger was not outside tent but inside the tent. Except for Rustik Slobodin, the participants either died in desperation tryingto avoid freezing (Igor, Zina, Yur Kri, and Doroshenko) or in painful agony(Luda and Zolotarev) or in futility (Kolevatov). It is the story of their deathsthat make this a tragedy that will be remembered for years to come. The mystery of the Dyatlov expedition is so popular that the DyatlovFoundation has been founded in Yekaterinburg, with the help of Ural StateTechnical University, led by Yuri Kuntsevitch (Юрий Кунцевич). Thefoundation's aim is to convince current Russian officials to reopen theinvestigation of the case, and to maintain the "Dyatlov Museum" toperpetuate the memory of the dead hikers. End. If you enjoyed this book please post your opinion on it at Amazon’s Kindlewebsite. Very few people post reviews any more (only about one in ahundred) and, without reviews, books go unnoticed, both good and bad. Ifyou would like to read another survival book by the same author there arefour recommendations, The Lost Expedition, part of the Tom Bodeen seriesand which very accurately follows a failed professional expedition. The

second is the book She, which records survival on a tropical island duringWorld War II. The third is the short story Ship’s Log found in My Best ShortStories which, like this one, takes place in the future, and the fourth is theapocalyptic novel The War of Mankind set about ten years from now. If you would like to read a truly eerie, actual proven case in the paranormal,the author’s book, Invisible World, will give you something to think about. Itincludes over 200 court testimonies into America’s most bizarre, terrifyingcase involving eighteen deaths. This goes outside the human experience.Thanks for reading.