I like your answer. My reservations have to do with leaving the tent. We know they squabbled about repairing the tent prior to their final camp. It would be arrogance personified for anyone to knife it once, let alone twice! My thinking also goes a trek from here to location a mile from where I write and back. I imagine myself on a slope covering that cold rocky, icy ground both ways. . I imagine winter conditions. I imagine people relaxing, laughing in the tent prepping and reading the Daily Ortoten while I am far, far away fetching wood so they can be comfy. This is not the egalitarian attitude reflected in the diaries.
I prefer to think the entire cohort was together and affected by something that drove them from the tent. You are arguing that a divided group's unknown compelling force was loyalty motivated by urgency if not necessity. It is as good an idea as any, and like any it has its holes. Stalled drivers freeze in the snow suggests impulsiveness, a poor understanding of the facts, or perhaps in the DP9 case, a sublimated form of sexual bravado gone bad. What is indisputable is that Nature is indifferent and bad things happen to good people.
And I appreciate the challenges - it is making me stress test my theory!
I think context is extremely important in all this.
my opinion is that in sub-0 temperatures the firewood is much more of a necessity than a comfort or a luxury.
I grant you we may differ on that opinion, but we can't deny the group did use firewood, and that it's scarcity was significant enough to mention in the group diary.
If they use wood, and we know they did - at some point someone has to collect it, it's inescapable.
My argument is this was the perfect time to gather firewood, they have extra time, the wood is 1.5 km away and they must know the trees hold dry branches. A 1.5 km hike may sound like a lot - but remember they camped early, on any other day they would be outside hiking at this time anyway.
Also the question of group cohesiveness, I'm not denying that - but we also can't expect them to be synchronized in thought and movement at every instance. And there are documented instances to prove this, Kolevatov missed the bus to Vizhay and they were forced to wait for him to catch up - for this to happen he must have wandered away from the group at some point.. Then there's the incident of the tangerine when Luda sat alone in the tent, the argument caused by Krivonishenko when he was forced to sleep by the stove.
Then there's also another fact to consider, as united as we would like to imagine they were, there was also a 9th member, someone they knew for what .. just over a week? Someone who is a bit of a loner, not part of the group, he is older, at first they didn't want him there. As likely as the rest of the team is to stick together - what's stopping him from saying, hey you know what guys, I'm going to go out to the woods there and get some branches, who wants to come? It's safer to send two than just one right?
Lets argue it the other way, lets say yes they are perfectly bonded and work together at all times - a good team works together, but together doesn't necessarily mean the same task - splitting tasks also makes sense, one team prepares for dinner, sets up the stove etc, the other team gets wood. This way they're working together as well. Whichever way you look at it, whether bonded or not, two hikers going for wood makes sense in either scenario.
I think we have need, opportunity, and time. This is not a holiday, not a picnic, gathering wood is a task like any other, they were to earn the highest accreditation achievable, not a scout merit badge.
As to leaving the tent - my proposed reason for this is Tibo's fall, and Zolotarev's subsequent return to the tent calling for help.
Most of the prints are missing, we can't say for sure how close he got to the tent before they heard him, but the effect is the same - his call triggered a panic response from the team.
Here again I think a member of the group acted alone - and again the context is very important.
Of course if you say, who would slash a tent in sub-0 temperatures, specially when they had already had disagreements about slashing the tent.
Think about that statement! They had already slashed the tent for lesser reasons, even if it caused disagreements. My guess is, when it got too hot in the tent - someone would slash it to let in cool air. Then if it got too cold again they stuffed a bit of clothing in the hole.
Now when there's an emergency, the people inside are blind to what is outside - they don't know what is happening, they don't know if they need to respond within seconds?
The incident of the bear is important - imagine Doroshenko had been killed by that bear, imagine we were discussing what could have happened.. and someone suggests - hey, maybe he ran at it to try to scare it away. How many people would agree yes that must be the most likely explanation? Of course not, everyone would say that is ridiculous, he was no idiot, he understands what a bear is, a bear can tear a person to shreds with less effort than it takes you to open a can of coke.
Yet he did.
Now that same person - do you think he is the type to stop and ask for permission? do you think he will let a piece of cloth get in his way? When as far as he knows, a seconds delay can make all the difference?
They are preparing food, there are knives on the floor. A tent can be mended, they had done that already. Whatever is happening outside can't be reversed to easily.
He slashes the tent, the others pull him back and push him towards the back of the tent. "Are you insane? what the hell is wrong with you?". But he just does it again, and gets out this time.
This is more than enough reason to justify the conflict they had later that night.
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