Dead Mountain: The True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident

by Eichar, Donnie

  I looked up to see a metal structure resembling a fez crowning the top of the rock, with a star perched on top of it. The 1959 search party had erected the ornament in order to better see the rock from a distance. On the far side of the rock, about six feet above the ground, we found the bronze plaque commemorating the Dyatlov party. In 1964, five years after the hikers’ burial, Kuntsevich and his brothers had helped conceive of and mount the plaque for a special ceremony. Though Yuri Yudin hadn’t made it to the mountains in 1959, he managed the trek to Boot Rock that summer to observe the five-year anniversary of the tragedy.

  Friends, take off your hats

  In front of this granite rock.

  Guys, we won’t let you go . . .

  We keep warming up your souls,

  Which are staying forever

  In these mountains . . .

  AS I CIRCLED THE ROCK, SEARCHING FOR EVIDENCE OF previous visitors, I came upon a tan Stetson tucked under a natural shelf about four feet above the ground. I lifted the hat to find a cache of notes, letters and poems dedicated to the Dyatlov group, most of them severely yellowed. Over the last fifty years, summer hikers had placed these items here out of the elements, like a time capsule, or a message in a bottle to others who managed the journey. There were rolled up bits of paper tucked into crevices, not unlike the notes in Jerusalem’s Western Wall—and as much as I longed to read them, I dared not test their fragility. Also inside the recess were photographs of the hikers, many of them in their final days. There was an 8 × 10 laminated photo of Igor, one that was among my favorite likenesses of him. Igor is featured in close-up, dusted with snow and smiling rakishly for the camera. It is one of the few photographs in which the Dyatlov group leader appears unabashedly playful.

  To celebrate our arrival at our penultimate stop, one of our snowmobile drivers pulled a flask from his jacket and proposed a toast. Then Borzenkov, Voroshchuk, the three snowmobilers and I took a swig. The drink instantly warmed my insides and I found a renewed strength to push onward to our final stop—the location of the hikers’ tent, which was still a mile away. The landscape from that point became too steep to continue on our snowmobiles, so we left the vehicles—along with their drivers—at the rock and set out on foot. But as the effects of the vodka quickly wore off, and as snow flurries began to swarm around us, our uphill climb slowed. The ground beneath the snow was deceptively treacherous, with jagged rocks and cavities testing our balance at every step. And worse, I could feel my feet beginning to sweat, a curious sensation considering that the first three toes on my right foot were growing numb with cold. My only guess was that my boots were not ventilating properly, and the more I perspired, the more my toes began to stick together with frozen sweat. I couldn’t imagine what I would be experiencing now had we not taken the snowmobiles most of the way. I marveled at the stamina of the young people who had come through here five decades ago in worse weather and with inferior outerwear. I stopped for a moment to rub the top of my right boot, but Borzenkov reminded me to keep moving.

  After about thirty minutes of climbing, I heard a shout behind me and turned to see Borzenkov sliding down the slope. There was nothing the rest of us could do but hope his momentum slowed or that he caught hold of something. After what must have been at least 30 feet, he somehow stopped himself on some rocks protruding from the snow. Thankfully, the rocks were not sharp enough to injure him, and he slowly fought his way back to us. Our trek up the slope was arduous, and consumed much of our remaining daylight and energy.

  Once we got to a level stopping point, I asked Borzenkov how close we were to the tent site. He said we must be nearing it, but that it was virtually impossible to know until he spotted specific indicators in the landscape. I could see that he was getting frustrated, but then with everything around us starting to look the same, why wouldn’t he? I found it incredible that the search volunteers in 1959 had found the tent at all.

  As we stopped to catch our breath again, Borzenkov pointed ahead and off to the right to a vast assemblage of cedar trees standing about a mile away. From this vantage point, the cedars were merely an inky splotch against the snow and sky. This, he explained, was where a few of the hikers had built a small fire after initially leaving the tent. The site, of course, wasn’t only where the hikers made a fire; it was also where Yuri Doroshenko and Georgy Krivonishchenko had died.

  The sun was falling rapidly toward the horizon as we neared the location of the tent an hour later. I worried not that we wouldn’t have enough daylight to find our way back to Ushma—something that, in retrospect, should have concerned me—but that it would be too dark to see the site of the hikers’ campsite clearly. Borzenkov suddenly stopped to tell us that by his estimates we were nearing the tent site. Not far off, I spotted the man-made landmark that Kuntsevich had placed four years ago, a steel pole sticking out of the snow that indicated where the tent had once stood. As I started to move confidently toward the pole, Borzenkov confided to me that Kuntsevich’s marker was inaccurate. He instead pointed to another spot about 1,000 feet away from the pole, explaining that he had done precise measurements of the area. Using both GPS and photogrammetry—the science of determining spatial measurements from photographs—he had arrived at this precise location.

  Vladimir Borzenkov (left) and the author on Holatchahl mountain, February 2012.

  When I reached the point Borzenkov had indicated, I turned around, taking in 360 degrees of “Dead Mountain.” The name “Holatchahl” derives from the Finno-Ugric root “hoolat,” meaning “dead”—Finno-Ugric being the larger linguistic grouping of languages to which Mansi belongs. Despite a gloomy name that invites a clear connection to be drawn to the Dyatlov tragedy, Mansi semantics experts believe the mountain to have been named for its lack of vegetation. In this meaning, “Mountain of the Dead,” as some have come to call it, is incorrect. “Dead Mountain” is the proper translation, which certainly made sense to me—there was no life up here to speak of. I didn’t find the slope particularly beautiful or inspiring, and for some reason, I found the bald dome of the summit difficult to look at.

  In unspoken agreement, the three of us stood there on the slope of Holatchahl in silence, knowing that at the very least, this place deserved a certain respect for the nine who had once stood here. But as the biting wind swept down the slope, it created a shrill whistle—a sound both beautiful and terrifying.

  After our moment of silence, I got to work examining the site of the tent and the surrounding area. The moment we had arrived on the slope, my mind had already been jumping to conclusions, but I tried to slow my thinking and examine the surroundings. To this end, I trudged along the slope to see how the snow would behave, and no snow fell or slid downward. I was surprised to see that the incline wasn’t nearly as steep as I’d imagined. Borzenkov told me he had previously used GPS to calculate the angle of the slope. His data showed that it was extremely unlikely for a soft, slab or slush avalanche to have occurred. The slope’s “run-out angle”—the angle that determines how far an avalanche will move—was 16 degrees from the top of the slope to the tent’s location. At 16 degrees, it would be nearly impossible for an avalanche to travel half the distance of a football field over such a flat surface to reach the tent. The slope angle below the tent was 25 degrees, which would be steep enough to slide only in the rarest conditions. While standing on the mountain it occurred to me that even if an avalanche had happened here, in spite of the data, it would have been impossible for the hikers to get out of the tent before the snow hit them and their tent. At most, the hikers would have ten seconds before the snowpack hit the tent and carried it down the slope. But this theory would work only if the avalanche could travel such a great distance over a shallow surface, and if the tent were not found still standing with contents in place and if the hikers were not found over a mile away from their campsite. Not only did an avalanche here appear extremely unlikely; we found it difficult to believe that any of the Dyatlov hikers would have considered even the
threat of an avalanche enough reason to abandon the tent.

  Avalanche aside, there was another aspect of the case that had always puzzled me, but was only now hitting me with full force: I couldn’t conceive of how the hikers could have left their tent improperly clothed—most without shoes—to walk almost a mile to the cedars along the horizon. It took us well over an hour to walk half a mile in these conditions, and we were equipped with warmer clothing and modern hiking gear. According to Borzenkov’s analysis after studying weather records of the surrounding areas from February 1, 1959, the Dyatlov group would have faced strong winds of up to 40 miles per hour on their descent into the cedars. There had been a waning crescent moon of 33 percent on the night of February 1, which might have provided some light once it had risen. But even if the moon had not been obscured by clouds, it didn’t rise until after four in the morning—four to six hours after it’s believed the nine hikers left the tent. Our current conditions of minus twenty degrees Fahrenheit were close to those the Dyatlov group would have experienced in 1959. Combined with the aggressive winds and a wind chill estimated at forty below zero, the poorly clothed hikers would have had a maximum of six to eight hours to live. After the hikers reached the cedars, it would have been next to impossible to find the tent and return to it.

  The combination of strong winds and subzero temperatures had clearly led to the hikers’ deaths; that much was clear. But the case still boiled down to a single question: What, if not an avalanche, provoked the nine hikers to leave the sanctuary of their tent?

  25

  MAY 1959

  GETTING THE FOUR REMAINING BODIES DOWN FROM THE mountains and onto an examining table was not an easy task. By now the Dyatlov case’s notoriety had spread through the Sverdlovsk region and beyond, as had all its attendant rumors and theories. It seemed that everyone in the region had his or her own idea as to what had happened to the hikers that night—speculation that ranged from Mansi killers and mysterious armed men, to experimental military aircraft and radioactive weapons. By spring, the suppositional winds were blowing in the direction of a military cover-up. One of the members of the search party who had been on the scene when the remaining bodies were found, had one such theory involving UFOs and temporary insanity. Nikolay Kuzminov spoke for many of those who had witnessed bizarre lights in the sky that winter. In a letter printed in Gushchin’s Murder at the Mountain of the Dead, Kuzminov wrote: “I think that their death was caused by ‘fire orbs,’ which we saw one night too, followed by five to six minutes of mind confusion.” In support of this, Kuzminov pointed out that the hikers had strayed from their tent like a bunch of “lunatics.”

  Lyuda Dubinina’s own father, in his testimony from mid-April, weeks before his daughter’s body was found, talked of a similar force affecting the hikers’ senses. “I think a missile was launched from within the USSR,” Alexander Dubinin said. “It all makes me think that they fled from the tent due to an explosion and emission near the height of 1,079 [yards] . . . which forced the hikers to run away from the tent and maybe it affected their condition, particularly their sight.”

  With all these theories in rampant circulation, Lev Ivanov may not have been too surprised when, after he requested an Air Force helicopter to transport the hikers’ bodies, the pilot, Captain Gatezhenko, refused to let the bodies near his aircraft. Either Gatezhenko hadn’t realized the nature of the mission when he agreed to it, or something about the tarpaulin-covered corpses gave him pause. Either way, when he arrived at the scene, he refused to carry out the task, informing Ivanov and Colonel Ortyukov that his chief wouldn’t approve of the transportation of corpses without the proper vessel. He specifically requested zinc-lined coffins, which were sealed to prevent toxic or biological leakage.

  Gatezhenko’s refusal to carry the corpses without the proper coffins resulted in a heated argument with Colonel Ortyukov, and when the colonel failed to make any headway with the stubborn pilot, he fired off a radiogram to Ivdel. “It’s disgraceful, I and fourteen other comrades brought corpses by hand to the helicopter,” Ortyukov wrote to Comrade Prodanov, a member of the search efforts in Ivdel. “Despite my compelling requests, they didn’t take the bodies aboard. As a Communist I’m shocked with the actions of crew and ask you to inform city committee of the Party and commander Colonel General Lelyushenko thereof.” Ortyukov went on to explain that examination of the bodies on the spot was impossible, as the one forensic expert on the scene refused to perform an autopsy “due to the state of the bodies.” Ortyukov sent a follow-up message later that day emphasizing the integrity of the tarps and requesting that the Air Force order the immediate evacuation of the corpses without special coffins. Prodanov replied he would try to persuade the Air Force, but added “they’ll hardly agree to transport them without coffins.” Prodanov’s next radiogram was the final word on the subject: “Zinc-coated coffins ordered today, will be delivered tomorrow.” The corpses would have to keep another day.

  On May 8, four days after their discovery, the hikers’ bodies were taken to the mortuary at Ivdel’s central hospital for forensic examination.

  WITH IVANOV PRESENT IN THE EXAMINATION ROOM, A Sverdlovsk forensic expert named B. A. Vozrozhdyonny set to work on finding out how the last four Dyatlov hikers had died. He had been present during the first five autopsies, though his colleague Ivan Laptev had actually performed them. Vozrozhdyonny had been anticipating—and no doubt dreading—this very summons all spring.

  First on the examining table was twenty-four-year-old Alexander Kolevatov. Vozrozhdyonny began by cataloguing Kolevatov’s abundant pieces of clothing, noting the conspicuous—though by now expected—lack of footwear. Though Kolevatov had gone out into the snow without his boots, no responsible outdoorsman is ever caught without matches—and he had a matchbox in one of his pockets, along with a packet of (now empty) painkillers. Kolevatov’s ankle had also been bandaged, which indicated a previous hiking injury, though one apparently not serious enough to prevent his participation on the hike. The rest of the examination found nothing unusual about the body other than rigor mortis, livor mortis and the accompanying discoloration of the skin and organs, and Vozrozhdyonny concluded that Kolevatov had died of hypothermia, as had the first five hikers found. No surprise there.

  With the first examination out of the way, Vozrozhdyonny and Ivanov might have expected that the three others had met the same fates. And, indeed, upon initial examination of thirty-seven-year-old Sasha Zolotaryov, things seemed to be progressing as the previous examination had. Zolotaryov was wearing generous layers of clothing, no shoes, and his skin and organs showed the same discoloration. One superficial difference was Zolotaryov’s multiple tattoos. In addition to a tattoo of beets and the name Gena on his right arm and hand, his left arm revealed a five-pointed star and the number (or year) 1921. It was Zolotaryov’s midsection that struck the forensic analyst as unusual: The right side of his chest had sustained serious injury, with five fractured ribs resulting in severe hemorrhaging. Vozrozhdyonny concluded that the fractures had been inflicted by a “large force” while the victim had been alive.

  For twenty-three-year-old Kolya Thibault-Brignoles, Vozrozhdyonny found similar violent injuries, though this time the fractures were to the head. He concluded that Kolya had died of “impressed fracture of skull dome and base with abundant hemorrhage.” He added that the injury had been sustained while the hiker had been alive by “effect of a large force.”

  The forensic expert’s examination of Lyudmila Dubinina was the most alarming. The twenty-year-old’s body had sustained massive thoracic damage, with internal hemorrhaging, including that of her right heart ventricle, plus fractures to nine of her ribs. Most disturbing, however, was that when Vozrozhdyonny examined the young woman’s mouth, he saw that her tongue was missing. He offered no explanation in his report for this last detail, concluding only that, along with two of her companions, Lyuda’s death could be classified as “violent.”

  But what exactly did “violent”
suggest in this case? Had the violence been inflicted by a natural force or a human one? The May 9 autopsies failed to provide satisfactory answers to these questions, but Ivanov was determined to learn all he could about the hikers’ final hours, ideally before their bodies were put in the ground.

  The four funerals were scheduled for May 22, to be held at the military hospital in Sverdlovsk. Unlike the first five funerals, which had been conspicuously public, now only the families of the victims were permitted to attend.

  In the meantime, speculation about the hikers’ fates continued to circulate. On May 15, Ivanov brought in for questioning Vadim Brusnitsyn, a search volunteer, third-year UPI student and friend of the hikers. Why Ivanov was still bringing in witnesses at this late date is unclear, though he may well have been casting about for something that could make sense of the recent autopsies. Brusnitsyn told Ivanov that he didn’t think there was anyone among the Dyatlov group who would have infected the others with unnecessary panic, and that something “unusual, unprecedented” must have compelled his friends to escape the tent. “Only a threat of death can make people run barefoot at night from the only warm shelter,” he said. He went on to suggest that a strange phenomenon such as “light penetrating the tent walls,” “a sound” or “gases” might have driven the hikers far from their tent.

  All this speculation about extraordinary phenomena meant little, of course, without solid evidence. Ivanov knew that he needed more information to properly interpret the “violent” classification of the forensic expert. So four days before the funerals, Ivanov ordered radiological tests performed on the hikers’ organ samples and clothing. The results of the tests, however, would not be available for another eleven days, after the hikers were buried.