In 1959, a group of skiers undertook a treacherous trek. For over 60 years, the mystery of the Dyatlov Pass Incident has baffled the world as a whole.
In 1959, 23-year-old Igor Dyatlov assembled a group of peers to go on a skiing expedition across the northern Urals in Sverdlovsk Oblast, Soviet Union. Igor was an engineering student at the Ural Polytechnical Institute – how named the Ural Federal University – and decided to lead the group of nine skiers on the expedition. The group consisted of other students at the university. Including Igor Dyatlov, the group included: Yuri Nikolayevich Doroshenko; Lyudmila Alexandrovna Dubinina; Georgiy (Yuri) Alexeyevich Krivonischenko; Alexander Sergeyevich Kolevatov; Zinaida Alekseevna Kolmogorova; Rustem Vladimirovich Slobodin; Nikolai Vladimirovich Thibeaux-Brignolles; Semyon (Alexander) Alekseevich Zolotaryov; and Yuri Yefimovich Yudin.
The group as a whole were experienced Grade II hikers. They all had ski expedition experience, and they were hoping that undertaking this expedition would advance their expertise, and allow them to receive their Grade III certification. The route that Igor planned was approved of by the Sverdlovsk city council, with the goal of reaching Otorten, in the far northern region of Sverdlovsk Oblast. The group received their route book on January 23rd, 1959, and set off on the trek that very day, leaving Sverdlovsk city, known today as Yekaterinburg.
In the early morning of January 25th, 1959, the group arrived by train at the town of Ivdel. From there, they took a truck to the town of Vizhai, the last inhabited village that far north. The group spent the night there, buying supplies for the expedition. Two days later, on January 27th, the group began their trip up to Gora Otorten. The following day, January 28th, Yuri Yudin had to turn back due to knee and joint pain. The remaining hikers kept trekking on.
The next bit of the timeline has been pieced together from writings, journal entries, and diaries found during the course of the investigation.
On January 31st, 1959, the group had hit the edge of the highland, and were preparing to climb. They hid a surplus of food in a wooded valley, in order to retrieve the supplies on the way back. The following day, the group began making their way through the pass. It was indicated in writings that they had intended to make their way over the pass, and make camp on the opposite side.
However, the weather conditions worsened, snowstorms decreasing visibility rapidly. Thinking quickly, the group diverted slightly from the path laid out in their route book, and headed west, toward the top of Kholat Syakhl. The group then set up camp, on the slope of the mountain. Had they moved 1.5 kilometers (0.93 miles) downhill, they would have had better cover in a forested area.
The group was expected to return to Vizhai around February 12th, 1959, in which case they would send a telegram to the school alerting their instructors of their whereabouts, seeing as the expedition was being sanctioned by the university as part of their sports club. However, a slight delay in communications would not have been unheard of. By February 20th, 1959, the relatives of the ski group were growing worried about their whereabouts. A group of students and teachers formed a search and rescue group.
On February 26th, 1959, the searchers found the group’s tent. It appeared to have been badly damaged, half torn down, covered in snow. The tent was empty, however all of the group’s belongings were found inside the tent’s remains. It also appeared as though the tent had been torn from the inside – as though the group had to cut their way out.
The searchers found nine sets of footprints in the snow, leading away from the campsite. Some of the prints were from only socked feet. Some were barefoot. One set had a single bootprint. The searchers followed the footprints for about 500 meters (1,600 feet), where they were then covered in snow. At the edge of the forest, the reamins of a small campfire were found under a Siberian pine tree.
Yuri Nikolayevich Doroshenko and Georgiy (Yuri) Alexeyevich Krivonischenko were found here, shoeless, dressed only in their underwear. The searchers found three more bodies between the campsite, and the tree: Igor Dyatlov, Zinaida Alekseevna Kolmogorova, and Rustem Vladimirovich Slobodin. They were found in a way that suggested they were attempted to trek back to the tent.
On May 4th, 1959, over two months later, the remaining four were found: Lyudmila Alexandrovna Dubinina, Alexander Sergeyevich Kolevatov, Nikolai Vladimirovich Thibeaux-Brignolles, and Semyon (Alexander) Alekseevich Zolotaryov. They were found under four meters (13 feet) of snow in a ravine, just a bit farther into the woods. They were found roughly 75 meters (246 feet) away from the others.
There were signs that three members of the group had attempted to take clothing off the others, as they were better dressed than the others. It was as if they had taken the clothes their friends perished in, and attempted to use them for shelter and warmth. Clothing found at the campsite was found to be radioactive.
When the first five bodies were discovered, a legal inquest was launched. No injuries were found during a medical examination of the bodies, and the conclusion was drawn that they had died of hypothermia. Rustem Vladimirovich Slobodin appeared to have a small injury to his skull, though it was not believed to have been a fatal wound.
The examination of the bodies found in May flipped the script on the investigation. Nikolai Vladimirovich Thibeaux-Brignolles was found to have major damage to his skull, while Lyudmila Alexandrovna Dubinina and Semyon (Alexander) Alekseevich Zolotaryov both had major chest fractures. It was stated that the force required to inflict the injuries could be comparable to a car crash. However, they had no external damage. In fact, it appeared more like the three skiers had suffered a high level of pressure on their bodies.
However, stranger than these wounds, was the fact that all four found in the ravine had tissue damage to their heads and faces. It was concluded, though, that these injuries occurred post-mortem.
In May of 1959, the official inquest was ceased. The case, which had earned the moniker of The Dyatlov Pass Incident, was concluded to have been the result of a ‘compelling natural force’. The case was closed, and the files were sent to a secret archive.
Over the years, many theories and explanations have been posited by investigators, detectives, sleuths, internet sleuths, and anyone who had any form of interest in the case. From UFOs, to Yetis, to natural disasters, every angle of the case has been covered. The following potential explanations are the ones that make the most sense to me (some may agree, or disagree, and that’s alright – these are just the potential explanations that struck me as the most plausible).
In 2019, an expedition comprising of Swedish and Russian hikers trekked to the site of the Dyatlov Pass Incident. As they made it there, and began their own investigation, they proposed that a phenomenon known as katabatic wind could have caused the incident.
Katabatic winds are fairly rare, but not unheard of. They are extremely violent. These winds, also known as fall winds, carry high-density air from a higher elevation down a slope, with the force of gravity. These winds could have hit the campsite, and caused not only the tent collapse, startling the Dyatlov expedition group, but also causing snow drifts.
Such winds would have made it impossible to stay in the tent, causing the occupants to cut their way out. The group would then have done the most logical thing – gone for the tree line for shelter. As the winds died down, some may have tried to hike their way back up to the tent. On top of the tent, a torch, or flashlight, may have intentionally been left on to make it easier to find. It’s speculated that some of the hikers may have attempted to make a temporary shelter out of snow, which caused them to be caught under the pressure, and stuck down in the ravine.
Another speculation claims that the campsite may have fallen within the range of Soviet military tests. More specifically, it’s theorized that the campsite fell within range of a Soviet parachute mine exercise. It’s theorized that a loud explosion from a parachute mine woke the hikers, and they fled the tent, cutting themselves out of it, in a panic, in various states of undress, unable to return for their gear or supplies.
This theory also corroborates statements from a few witnesses who claimed to have reported glowing orange orbs floating and falling in the sky.
Furthermore, in 2008, a long piece of metal was found in the area. The three-foot piece of metal was found to be part of a Soviet ballistics missle. This could explain the radioactivity of the clothing found at the site.
In 2015, the Dyatlov Pass Incident was officially reopened and reinvestigated. A review of the 1959 case files was done between 2015 and 2019 by seasoned investigators from the ICRF – the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation. They suspected that an avalanche was the most likely cause of the Dyatlov Pass incident.
In reviewing the case, they found that the weather conditions on the night of the incident were extremely harsh. Winds were blowing between 72-108 kilometers per hour (45-67 miles per hour), a snowstorm was blowing, and temperatures had reached -40 degree celsius (which also equates to -40 degrees fahrenheit). With these conditions in mind, the investigators were able to roughly reconstruct the events of that night.
On February 1st, 1959, they surmise that the Dyatlov group made it to the Kholat Syakhl mountain, where they set up camp. The put up their tent on an open slope, with no shelter around it. For the next few days, the storm raged on beyond the walls of the tent.
Next, it’s theorized that digging the tent site into the snow on the slope, rather than down near the tree line, weakened the snow base the tent was on. As the snow kept falling, the snowfield above the tent, on the mountain’s incline, began to slide down under the weight of the new snow. As the snow slide down, it snowed in the entrance of the tent, causing the group to panic, cut their way out, and flee the avalanche. There wasn’t enough time for them all to dress properly.
Next, it’s suggested that the hikers who had not had time to dress erected a small fire near the tree line for warmth. They were confirmed to have died of hypothermia. Three members of the group, those found in positions appearing to be heading back to tent, may have attempted to go back and retrieve clothing and supplies. They were also found to have died of hypothermia, having succumbed to the extreme weather conditions.
The investigators further theorize that the four found in the ravine, dressed in warmer clothing and better footwear, may have set out to establish a temporary shelter to ride out the rest of the storm. As they were trying to find a place to make camp, they could have fallen into a snow hole, wherein they were covered in feet upon feet of snow, causing the pressure injuries to their bodies. Furthermore, as the bodies were found two months later, it’s speculated that the soft tissue damage was caused by wild animals.
The ICRF investigation concludes that extremely bad weather, and a lack of experience on behalf of the hikers in these conditions contributed to the tragedy that transpired.
This theory was emboldened in 2021 when a model demonstrating the event was published in Communications Earth & Environment by a team led by Alexander Puzrin and Johan Gaume. The avalanche replicated by the model corroborates the ICRF findings. The group fell victim to an avalanche, panicked, split up, and succumbed to the elements, and their injuries.
As some were found in various states of undress, the most likely scenario is a phenomenon known as paradoxical undressing, wherein someone who is hypothermic begins to feel overly warm, and begins to undress.
As for the radiation found on the bits of clothing, it was found that the gas lanterns in the tent held thorium, which could explain this oddity.
To say that the incident has been resolved with 100% certainty is highly optimistic. There is no way to know for sure if the avalanche theory, or any of the theories readily available in regards to this case, are, in fact, what actually transpired that cold, horrible night in 1959.
However, closure can be found in the fact that the recent reopening of the case, and the conclusions from that investigation, are the most likely scenario for what has been known around the world as the Dyatlov Pass Incident.
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Sources:
Has an Old Soviet Mystery at Last Been Solved? – Douglas Preston – The New Yorker
Have Scientists Finally Unravelled The 60-Year Mystery Surrounding Nine Russian Hikers’ Death? – Meilan Solly – Smithsonian Magazine
Is the Dyatlov Pass Incident Solved? – Kelly Kizer Whitt – EarthSky.Org
Dyatlov Pass incident Wikipedia page