Dead Mountain: The True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident

by Eichar, Donnie

  The girls took the available beds, and the men—Grandpa Slava included—spread out on the floor with their sleeping bags. Despite the growing pain in his leg, Yudin chose to believe that he’d feel better in the morning.

  When Yudin awoke and tried to pull himself off the floor into a standing position, it became apparent to everyone, including Yudin, that it would be foolish for him to continue on the trip. Besides, this was his last opportunity to head safely back to civilization. From here on, there would be no more settlements—only forest—and the group couldn’t risk having to carry Yudin out should he be unable to move. And so it was decided that he would return home. Kolya wrote in the group’s diary:

  Sure is a pity to part with him, especially to me and Zina, but it can’t be helped.

  While Grandpa Slava was readying his load of iron pipes to take back to Sector 41, Yudin gathered as many minerals as he could find scattered around the area, mostly pyrite and quartz, and piled them into the sleigh. “The man with the horse was in a hurry,” Yudin remembers, “and yelled for me to hurry up.” Yudin regretted having to leave his friends, but he adopted his usual smile and reminded himself that they’d be reunited in ten days. After a round of warm hugs, he left the nine to continue the trek to Otorten Mountain without him. He loaded his pack onto the sleigh, but the extremely cold pipes prevented him from hitching a ride himself. And so with aches shooting through his legs and back, Yudin skied after Grandpa Slava and the horse all the way down the 15 miles of winding river.

  The abandoned cabin where the Dyatlov hikers stayed, January 28, 1959.

  The Dyatlov hikers rest on the geologists’ shelves in the abandoned village. From left to right: Lyudmila “Lyuda” Dubinina, Alexander “Sasha” Zolotaryov, Zinaida “Zina” Kolmogorova, January 28, 1959.

  Yuri Yudin shares a final hug with Lyudmila “Lyuda” Dubinina before returning home. Igor Dyatlov looks on, January 28, 1959.

  16

  FEBRUARY–MARCH 1959

  AFTER NEWS OF THE FOUR BODIES REACHES SVERDLOVSK, and the initial shock sets in, friends and family of the hikers begin to cast about for someone to blame. Many hold the university responsible for allowing students to embark on such dangerous expeditions in the first place. There are additional rumblings around this time that investigators should be directing their inquiries toward the native people of the region. When Mansi tracks are discovered not far from the hikers’ route, the question arises: Did the tribe resent Russians intruding on their sacred territory? To address the growing suspicions, foresters who work in proximity to the Mansi are brought into Ivdel for questioning.

  Forester Ivan Rempel, who had met the hikers in Vizhay a week before their disappearance, is unequivocal in his defense of the Mansi. “I believe it’s impossible,” he remarks in his testimony of early March, “because I meet Mansi often and don’t hear any hostile words toward other nations from them. They are very hospitable when you visit or meet them.” Rempel also points out that the area where the hikers traveled is not sacred tribal land. “Local residents say that sacred rocks of the Mansi are at the Vizhay riverhead, 100 to 150 kilometers from the place of the hikers’ deaths.”

  As for signs that the Mansi had been shadowing the hikers, Vizhay forester Ivan Pashin rejects the evidence in his testimony to investigators: “At one kilometer from the first stopping place of the hikers, we saw a Mansi standing site where they pastured reindeer, but it was after the hikers’ deaths, because the Mansi tracks were fresh, and the hikers’ [camp] looked old.” He concludes, “Mansi could not have attacked hikers. On the contrary, knowing their habits, they help Russians. . . . Mansi have taken lost people into their homes and sustained them by providing food.”

  Andrey Anyamov, a Mansi hunter and reindeer herdsman from Suyevatpaul, had been hunting near the Auspiya River in late January, around the time the hikers had been in the area. When he and his companions are brought to Ivdel for questioning, he tells investigators, “All four of us saw ski tracks, but we didn’t follow them. We saw trails of moose, wolves, wolverines, but didn’t see fire places or hear human voices.” As for the idea that the area held any religious significance for the tribe, Anyamov’s hunting partner, Konstantin Sheshkin, points out: “There’s no sacred mountain in our hunting places. . . . But now the Mansi don’t visit sacred mountains. The youth don’t pray at all, and elders pray at home.”

  After several interviews of this nature, it becomes clear to investigators that, aside from there being zero physical evidence of Mansi involvement, a people known for their harmonious nature could hardly have orchestrated an event that would have sent the hikers to their deaths.

  Back on Holatchahl mountain, the search party—which still includes Mansi volunteers—is discarding all hope of finding any of the Dyatlov group alive. This is now a recovery mission, and the searchers are left with the grim task of locating five snowy graves. Maslennikov orders an area of 30,000 square yards to be probed by a team of thirty men. Some of the searchers have been using ski poles to plumb the depths of the snow, but when the probes Maslennikov ordered from his factory arrive, they are able to reach a new depth of over eight feet. The men, clad in near-identical coats and trapper caps arrange themselves in shoulder-to-shoulder chains in front of a patch of ground. Then, steel in hand, they advance over the landscape, stabbing at the snow, like a small army whose enemy is beneath their feet. It is an exhausting and imperfect system, and the men encounter patches where the probes fail to reach the ground. There is one particular ravine that is roughly 15 feet deep. Via radiogram, an official in Ivdel suggests sending miners with metal detectors to the mountains.

  Search teams probe the area for the hikers, February—March, 1959.

  Maslennikov replies:

  MINERS NEED PROBES RATHER THAN METAL DETECTORS AS PEOPLE UNDER SNOW DON’T HAVE METAL THINGS.

  But Maslennikov’s opinion on the matter is ignored, and the next day a team of miners arrives, metal detectors in tow. After a day or two of sweeping the ground and finding nothing, the miners realize that Maslennikov was right. Whatever watches or metal accessories the hikers might have been wearing is not enough to set off the detectors. So the miners trade in their machines for probes and join the files of men stabbing at the snow.

  On March 1, Lev Ivanov arrives on the scene. Ivanov is not replacing Tempalov as lead investigator because of any particular incompetence on the latter’s part; the discovery of the bodies merely requires a higher level of oversight, and Ivanov’s regional scope trumps Tempalov’s municipal one. In addition to his title as junior counselor of justice, Ivanov is a World War II veteran, a husband and a father. He is too obsessed with work, however, to be described by his wife and two young daughters as a family man—and that spring, the Dyatlov case will only take him farther away from his family for longer periods of time. In the coming months, as Ivanov makes multiple trips into the northern Urals, the topography around Holatchahl mountain will become forever etched in his mind.

  Ivanov’s first order of business is to board a helicopter and familiarize himself with the locations where the bodies were discovered. There is little to be seen in the places where Zina and Dyatlov had fallen, but the site of the 25-foot cedar tree yields more clues. Examining the charred cedar branches at the fire pit, Ivanov determines that the fire had not burned for more than two hours. It is also apparent from broken branches found nearby, that one of the men had climbed the tree and had likely fallen in the process of cutting away branches. Cedar trees are dry and fragile, and the bough may have given way beneath him. This would be consistent with the cuts and bruises found on Doroshenko’s body, as well as the branches found beneath him. Once the men had started the fire, it would have been large enough to warm them, but not large enough to keep it burning for long. There are also additional footprints, leading Ivanov to believe that at least one other person besides Doroshenko and Krivonishchenko had been present at the site of the tree. There is also evidence of firewood and fir twigs having been
gathered for the fire, but not used. The obvious question, then, besides why the hikers had been only half-dressed with no shoes, is: Why gather perfectly good firewood, but let the fire go out? Ivanov records what information he can from the location, and as he heads back up the slope to commence his formal inspection of the tent, he considers the puzzle.

  Lev Ivanov on the scene, March 1, 1959.

  Together with Maslennikov, Ivanov examines the hikers’ camp and its immediate surroundings. The two men determine that the tent was erected as per hiking regulations. And though the tent is damaged with multiple tears, its integrity on the slope is intact, having clearly been rooted to the slope to account for strong winds.

  Maslennikov, in the meantime, in one of his many daily radiograms to Ivdel, begins to imagine a sequence of events for the night of February 1. He suggests that the hikers had dinner in the tent while still in the day’s damp clothes. Then, after nearing the end of dinner, they left the food out as they started changing into their dry clothes and shoes. At the very moment of changing their clothes, something happened to force all nine hikers out into the snow half-dressed.

  MAYBE SOMEONE WHO WAS DRESSED WENT OUTSIDE TO TAKE A LEAK AND WAS SWEPT AWAY. HIS CRY MADE OTHERS JUMP OUT OF THE TENT AND THEY WERE SWEPT OFF TOO. TENT IS SET IN MOST DANGEROUS POINT WITH STRONGEST WIND. IMPOSSIBLE TO GO 50 [METERS] BACK UPHILL AS TENT WAS TORN. THOSE WHO WERE BELOW COULD COMMAND TO GO TO FOREST ON SLOPE TOWARD AUSPIYA WHERE FOREST IS NEAR; MAYBE THEY WANTED TO FIND THEIR PREVIOUS CAMP PLACE. SLOPE IS ROCKY AND 2 TO 3 TIMES FARTHER FROM FOREST. THEY MADE A FIRE. AS DYATLOV AND KOLMOGOROVA WERE BETTER DRESSED, THEY WENT BACK TO LOOK FOR THE TENT WITH THEIR CLOTHES. LACKING STRENGTH THEY FELL.

  The weather is challenging for the volunteers on the slope that day, with high winds chafing skin and limiting visibility. By evening, the probing has turned up nothing and the searchers are growing increasingly fatigued. Yuri Blinov, who is taking additional time away from school to continue the search, is among those who craved some levity at the end of a day spent looking for corpses. He wrote of this time in his diary:

  In the evenings, participants tired from endless probing of snowy slopes returned to the tent and were telling tales in the absence of other business. Officers were entertaining us with all sorts of stories from criminal world routine. Jokes were popular as well.

  Though he is dedicated to the search for his missing friends, Blinov is exhausted and worried about skipping so many classes. It is time for him to return to Sverdlovsk. Two days later, Blinov and two other UPI students fly back home to resume their college lives.

  The weather on March 2 is little better than the previous day. Probing picks up where it left off, with some of the team expanding its search beyond the river valley. One of Maslennikov’s radiograms that day indicates he is rethinking his initial theory as to the hikers’ fate:

  WOULD LIKE TO ASK IF ANY NEW TYPE OF METEOROLOGICAL ROCKET PROBE FLEW OVER INCIDENT PLACE ON THE EVENING OF FEBRUARY 1.

  It is a cryptic message, and he doesn’t explain further, adding only:

  PLEASE SEND BUTTER, HALVA, CONCENTRATED MILK, SUGAR, COFFEE, TEA, CIGARETTES.

  The following day brings a snowstorm and high winds, but the searchers press on, paying particular attention to the Lozva River valley. Maslennikov also expresses for the first time his belief that the rest of the hikers did not get out alive:

  TEAM REACHED LOZVA. DYATLOV GROUP’S TRACES NOT FOUND, SNOW FROM MAIN RIDGE DUMPED INTO THIS BROOK, SNOW IS VERY DEEP. PROBABILITY THAT PART OF GROUP ESCAPED THROUGH THIS VALLEY TO LOZVA IS ZERO. . . .

  The severity of the storm forces Maslennikov’s group to turn back from the Lozva valley. But another group, which includes Slobtsov and Kurikov, has found the Dyatlov group’s storage shelter near the Auspiya River. There is nothing amiss about the structure. It is built to regulation standards and, aside from the meager amount of firewood, is filled with the necessary food and reserves that would have been needed for their return trip. The condition of the shelter only reinforces the searchers’ belief that these hikers had stuck religiously to protocol. Among the objects in the shelter is a single sentimental item: Georgy’s mandolin. With this abandoned instrument, the groups’ dedication to their sport is apparent—in earning their advanced hiking grade, even the music they loved was expendable.

  Later that day, Maslennikov and his team gather at the improvised helipad to see Lev Ivanov off. The prosecutor has done what he can at the tent site and will continue the investigation from his office in Sverdlovsk. Accompanying Ivanov in the helicopter are the bodies of Doroshenko, Krivonishchenko, Igor Dyatlov and Zina, all of which will undergo autopsies in the next couple of days.

  Ivanov may be the lead investigator, but Maslennikov continues to explore his own theories via radiogram:

  BUT THE MAIN MYSTERY IS WHY THE WHOLE GROUP FLED THE TENT. THE ONLY THING FOUND OUTSIDE THE TENT BESIDE THE ICE PICK IS A CHINESE TORCH ON THE TENT ROOF. THIS PROVES ONE FULLY DRESSED PERSON WENT OUTSIDE AND GAVE SOME SIGNAL TO OTHERS TO FLEE THE TENT AT ONCE.

  Maslennikov also clarifies his question about rocket probes:

  ONE POSSIBLE REASON IS SOME NATURAL PHENOMENON OR PASSAGE OF METEOROLOGICAL ROCKET PROBE WHICH WAS SEEN ON FEB. 1 FROM IVDEL AND BY KARELIN’S GROUP ON FEB. 17.

  “Karelin’s group” refers to the hiking team led by Vladislav Karelin, who is now among the search volunteers. Karelin and his companions had set out in February, shadowing the Dyatlov group’s path along the riverbed. At the beginning of the search for the missing hikers, Karelin’s visit to a Mansi village in mid-February, in which he and his fellow hikers shared tea with Pyotr Bahtiyarov, had been mistaken for a visit by Igor Dyatlov’s group. The mistake, which was eventually corrected, only temporarily misled investigators. But the Karelin group’s trip was to become of growing interest in the case. Several days after their visit to the Mansi village, Karelin and his friends had witnessed what he called a “strange celestial phenomenon.” Karelin later told investigators that on the early morning of February 17, he had been awoken by excited cries from the hikers on breakfast duty. “I rushed out of my sleeping bag and tent without boots, just in socks, stood on branches and saw a large light spot,” he recounted. “It grew larger. A small star appeared in its center and also grew bigger. The whole spot moved from northeast to southwest and down.” Karelin said that the light lasted just over a minute, and that he supposed it was a large meteorite. But one of his friends, Georgy Atmanaki, was so terrified by the orb of light, he feared a planet was about to collide with Earth. “I talked with witnesses later,” Atmanaki told investigators, “and they described the event similarly and added that the light was so intense that people were awoken inside their houses.”

  Now Maslennikov wonders: Did Igor Dyatlov and his friends witness something similar? Something that caused them to leave the tent wearing no shoes?

  Over the coming days, the evidence grows stranger. On March 5, as Karelin and another volunteer are probing a previously unexplored area, about 1,000 yards from the site of the hikers’ tent, they hit something not far beneath the surface: a fifth body. When they dig away the snow, Karelin is able to identify him as Rustik Slobodin. His body is lying facedown with his right leg bent beneath him, and his right fist pulled to his chest. He has on a checkered shirt, sweater, ski trousers, several pairs of socks and a single felt shoe. He also wears a ski cap, which is still intact on his head—strange, given the prevailing theory that wind blew the hikers from their campsite. Rustik lies midway between where Dyatlov and Zina had been found, their bodies in turn lining up with the site of the tent. Like Zina, Rustik is oriented toward the tent as if he had been working his way up the slope at the time of his collapse. Karelin and his companion notice a small hollow of encrusted snow near Rustik’s nose and mouth, where his breath had melted the surrounding snow, suggesting that Rustik had been alive for some time after he fell. But what is most startling is the front of Rustik’s head, which is deeply discolored, as if he
sustained a blunt force to the head.

  After pictures are taken and the area thoroughly documented, Rustik’s body is moved to the site of Boot Rock to await transport to Sverdlovsk. And now four hikers remain missing: Lyuda Dubinina, Sasha Zolotaryov, Alexander Kolevatov and Kolya Thibault-Brignoles.

  Around this time, after the tent’s contents are transported to Ivdel for further examination, a discovery is made about the tent itself. The discovery had, in fact, been noted in the case file early on, but it was not initially believed to be significant. Besides the ice-ax gashes made by Mikhail Sharavin upon discovery of the tent, there are additional cuts to the back of the tent. These are not the cuts of an ice ax, but appear to be made with more precision. There is one longer cut that is large enough to accommodate a person stepping through it. When a professional tailor is brought to the prosecutor’s office to make a new uniform for one of its officers, the woman is also asked to take a look at the damaged tarpaulin. After examining the threads along the mysterious cut, she confirms what investigators have already concluded: It is a deliberate slash made with a knife. The tailor hesitates to speculate beyond that, but for investigators, the meaning is clear. The hikers themselves would not have damaged their own tent in this way, even by accident, so this seems to suggest one thing: Someone from the outside knifed his way through the tent on that terrible night.

  17

  2012

  WHEN WE ARRIVED AT THE TRAIN STATION, IT WAS STILL dark. Kuntsevich’s martial discipline had us at the station at eight thirty in the morning, with over an hour to spare. I had been up for three hours, yet was still trying to shake myself out of my medicated daze after having taken a Valium the night before. I was not in the habit of taking pills in order to sleep—the Valium prescription was for my vertigo, a condition I’d been dealing with on and off for the previous seven years. But I had been so wired the previous night that without some help, I wouldn’t have slept at all. Even so, I’d slept only a few hours and was now struggling to stay alert on this first day of our trip.