This is not an avalanche theory but here is some information, Russia's winter starts from Dec 22 through March. The average snow fall with SLEET and ICE PELLETS is 40 inches or 1.02 meters. Before they left on their tour, it started to snow and when the conditions are right, sleet and ice pellets will also fall on the slopes..Wind currents blew snowdrifts adjacent the rock wall and on top of these rock formations. The one photo where a small slide occurred I added the skis(in Black and backpacks)Why? They snow bank/rock wall they settled on was probably unstable to begin with. When the tourists jabbed their skis into the snow bank, it perforated and cut into the snow in sections, and by walking around on it by building the wall up higher it loosened more. Lets look at the two photos, we can see that there is a lot of snow that has accumulated adjacent and on top of the rock wall. There clearly is a steep angle here, also , the exterior top of the wall is higher than the interior finished floor of the tent. Mountaineering 101, for the protection of the tent and occupants build a snow wall. In one of the photos the photographer yells out to it's team member and the member looks up. There is no panic and all is good, even though the winds are picking up every second. One or two people enter the tent to get things ready for the evening. The others are compacting the snow on the wall to secure it in place. This is a fatal mistake, by compacting the snow in this weather the surface solidifies and becomes slick.. The men not satisfied with the height of the wall and because of the conditions are deteriorating rapidly, they pull down as much loose snow from above onto the wall and compact it to make it bigger. Once satisfied, they rejoin the group. What they could not know is the second wall is not bonded to the first wall and is standing free. Once the winds hit gale force and along with gravity , in a split second they are slammed by( only a section of the wall).. Zina takes a direct hit on her side and the other sustain some minor head injuries. Because they cannot move lateral due to the weight and other tourist being in the way , they have to cut themselves free, once everyone is outside and the way they are dressed frost bite and hypothermia are knocking on the door. They frantically start to dig their way back in with their hands and even break a ski pole in the effort( then another section of the wall caves in on them and the tent.) There hands are now becoming useless and a decision is made fairly quickly to retreat to the forest as fast as they can. The gale force wind only allows them to travel so fast which explains the footprints. I believe the two Yuri's sprinted to the forest ahead of the others to start a fire. Given the distance they traveled in what they were wearing, they all made it quicker than the footprints say they moved... Unless we get papers that are not forged saying what exactly happened , this theory gives a plausable explanation to why the left without their gear.... No mountaineer would ever think of putting a knife to their tent except for a snow collapsed...No one runs into the hands of an unknown compelling force..Note: The time it took for the gale force winds to expose the raised footprints is the time it took to blow away evidence of the snow wall on the tent. The chunks of snow on the tent are measurable, the rescuers are not making a snowman. The cuts in the tent are clearly made by someone lying on their side. Humans naturally cut horizontal or vertical when perpendicular to an object. Only a gale force wind can move snow enough to uncover a raised footprint. Lastly, the three of them started toward the tent together because Zina by herself could not dig through the snow. It was sad for her to her to see her friends drop off one by one and it shows until the very last ounce of strength they fought for survival. Except for Teddy, all who have been there personally still were contaminated by a known fact that it was unlikely an avalanche, never considering the direct evidence which is always has been available. The flashlight was left on the tent on porpoise so they would have some light if they came back, which I think they had planned to.
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Topic: Contaminated theory/ double slide cave in (Read 17626 times)