Late January, 1959, a group of 10 skiers set out on an expedition across the northern Urals in Sverdlovsk Oblast, in what was the Soviet Union, now Russia. One member turned back partway through the trip due to illness. The remaining 9 continued forth, but what happened next remains to be understood. This is the mystery of Dyatlov Pass.
Igor Dyatlov, a 23 year old radio engineering student at the Ural Polytechnical Institute (Уральский политехнический институт, УПИ) assembled a group of 10 students and peers from the university for a skiing expedition. This expedition was to cross the northern Urals in Sverdlovsk Oblast, Soviet Union, with the goal of reaching Gora Otorten (Отортен), a mountain with an elevation of 4,049 feet. The group consisted of eight men and two women, all experienced Grade II hikers with ski touring experience. These members would receive Grade III certification, the highest certification available at the time, upon their return.
Dyatlov told his sports club that he would send a telegram once the group returned to Vizhai (Вижай). The group was expected to complete their expedition and arrive in Vizhai no later than February 12. They set out and on January 25, 1959 arrived by train at Ivdel (Ивдель), a city at the center of the northern province of Sverdlovsk Oblast. They took a truck to Vizhai where they spent the night.
On the morning of January 27, they began their trek toward Otorten. The following day, one of the members, Yuri Yudin began experiencing extreme knee and joint pain. Fearing he would be unable to complete the hike, as he had multiple health ailments including rheumatism and a congenital heart defect, Yuri turned back. The remaining nine members of the group continued forward and on January 31, they arrived at the edge of a highland area where they began to prepare for their climb. They stashed a store of food and equipment they would need for their trip back to Vizhai, in a wooded valley.
February 1, the group began through the pass, their plan to get over the pass and make camp for the next night on the opposite side, but worsening weather conditions impeded their travel. Snowstorms and limited visibility, caused the group to lose their direction west toward the top of Kholat Syakhl. Not wanting to lose ground, and the altitude they had gained, Dyatlov and the group decided it would be best to stop and setup camp on the slope of the mountain, rather than retreating nearly 1 mile downhill to a forested area which would have offered better protection from the elements.
No one knows for sure what happened to the group beyond this point.
February 12 came and went, and no messages were received by Yudin or the sports club. Yudin told people that Dyatlov had expected their trip to take a little longer, and so no red flags were raised at this time.
February 20, families of the group began to worry. It should not have taken them that long to send word, and they demanded a rescue operation. The first rescue groups consisted of volunteer students and teachers. The army and militsiya (Police) forces soon got involved and helicopters began to search as well.
On February 26, searchers came upon the group’s abandoned and badly damaged tent. Mikhail Sharavin, the student who found the tent, said “the tent was half torn down and covered with snow. It was empty, and all the group’s belongings and shoes had been left behind.” Further investigation showed that the tent had been cut open from the inside. Inside the tent, searchers found their cold weather gear; jackets, gloves, pants, and other warm clothing. Strange, considering February in the Ural Mountains has an average temperature of 2.1 °F. They also found navigation supplies including compasses, three axes and two Finnish knives.
They found footprints, eight to nine sets left by people wearing a single shoe, only socks, or even barefoot. These footprints led them to the edge of a nearby woods, almost a mile to the north-east, yet after about 1,600 ft, the tracks were covered with snow.
Underneath a large cedar tree at the edge of the forest, were the visible remains of a small fire, and the bodies of Yuri (Georgiy) Alexeyevich Krivonischenko, 23, and Yuri Nikolayevich Doroshenko, 21. Branches of the tree were broken, and the tree had human flesh embedded in the cracks of the bark, suggesting one or both of the pair had tried to climbed up, yet the pair were in only their underwear and had no shoes. Their hands, or what remained of them, were nothing more than bloody masses.
On their way back toward the camp, searchers found three more bodies, those of Igor Alekseyevich Dyatlov, 23, Zinaida Alekseevna Kolmogorova, 22, and Rustem Vladimirovich Slobodin, 23. They were found separately, 984 ft, 1574 ft, and 2132 ft from the tree. Dyatlov’s corpse was found with his jacket unbuttoned, and both his hands clenched tightly to his chest, his face covered with minor abrasions. Slobodin had a fractured skull, a 2.4 inch splitting the left side of his head. Despite this injury, it is still believed that Slobodin died of hypothermia. Kolmogorava had many injuries to her face, but her hands appeared to have taken the brunt of the damage, with abrasions in addition to frostbite.
The remaining four members of the group were not found until May 4, under 13 feet of snow in a ravine 246 feet farther into the woods from the cedar tree. These four were better dressed, and investigators believe that those who had died first, relinquished their clothes to the others. For example, Semyon (Alexander) Alekseevich Zolotaryov was wearing Lyudmila Alexandrovna Dubinina’s faux fur coat and hat, while Dubinina’s foot was wrapped in a piece of Yuri (Georgiy) Alexeyevich Krivonischenko’s wool pants.
The medical examination of the first five bodies found no injuries which would have led to their deaths, and it was concluded that they had all died of hypothermia. However, examination of the remaining four bodies found in May, tells a different story.
Nikolai Vladimirovich Thibeaux-Brignolles had major skull damage, appearing as though his skull had been bashed in, however there was no outside damage. Zolotaryvov was missing his eyes, and the soft tissues near the ocular area. His skull had a wide wound and his chest was so compressed that it spread and broke his ribs. Alexander Kolevatov was also missing the soft tissues near his eyes and on his skull. He also had an open wound in his skull, behind his ear.
Dubinina and Zolataryov both had major chest fractures. According to Dr. Boris Vozrozhdenny, the force required to cause such damage would have been equivalent to a car crash, yet the bodies had no external wounds related to the bone fractures. It is assumed the bodies had to have been subjected to a high level of pressure.
The majority of injuries were found on Dubinina. Her tongue, eyes, and part of her lips had been removed. Facial tissue and a fragment of her skull bone were also missing. Her nose had been completely crushed, and her mouth was positioned in an open position, almost as though she had been screaming. Her hands exhibited extensive skin maceration, or the softening and breaking down of skin as a result to prolonged exposure to moisture. It was claimed that she was found lying face down in a small stream that ran under the snow, and that was the cause of her external injuries.
There was some speculation that the indigenous Mansi people could have attacked and murdered the group, however there were no footprints at the scene aside from those of the hikers, and the dead showed no sign of a hand to hand struggle. Additionally, Dr. Boris Vozrozhdenny stated that the fatal injuries could not have been caused by another human being, because the force of the blows had been too strong and no soft tissue had been damaged.”
Remaining evidence shows that the victims had all died within 6 to 8 hours after their last meal. During funeral services for the hikers, their families noticed that the bodies of their loved ones gave off an unnatural orange glow, and some of their hair had gone gray, despite them being in their early 20’s. Testing of the clothes the hikers were wearing when they were found revealed extremely high levels of radiation, and the campsite also gave off radiation.
It was suspected that perhaps the hikers had come across a Russian testing zone, which led to their deaths. However, the Russian authorities assured investigators that no testing was going on in that area.
The case was closed fairly quickly, in May 1959 as a result of the absence of a guilty party. The official statement, given by Junior Counselor of Justice and Criminal Prosecutor of Sverdlovsk region, Lev Ivanov:
The deaths of the expedition members were due to a series of mistakes by Dyatlov. On 1 February he began the ascent to the summit at 3 PM, even though he knew about the difficulty of the terrain. Furthermore – and this was Dyatlov’s next mistake – he chose a line 500 m to the left of the planned pass that lies between Peak 1079 and Peak 880. So the group found themselves on the eastern slope of Peak 1079. They used what was left of the daylight to ascend to the summit in strong winds (which are typical for this area) and low temperatures of minus 25 degrees centigrade. Dyatlov found himself in bad conditions for the night, so he decided to pitch his tent on the slope of 1079 so as to start in the morning without adding the distance from the forest (~1 km) to the remaining trek of about 10 km to the summit.
Considering the absence of external injuries to the bodies or signs of a fight, as well as the abandonment of all the valuable resources, adding the conclusions of the medical examinations for the causes of the deaths, it has to be concluded that the cause of their deaths was calamity or overwhelming force.
With no survivors, and only the diaries and cameras to go off of, the case remains unsolved.
Another mystery to sink your teeth into is the question of What Happened to Kris and Lisanne?