No credible reason...

[Lyndasez]

Whilst pondering this theory, lightning or ball lighting, I can find no reasoning as to why this phenomena would put these skilled hikers in mortal fear. No locals or military put their lives in jeopardy who’ve said they witnessed such occurrences. Accounts of these lights I believe, were attributable to, strange cloud formations, spy planes/balloons or soviet search lights in pursuit of the afore mentioned. Could be missile tests as well.

EX:  “Gary Powers was performing photographic aerial reconnaissance when it was hit by an S-75 Dvina (SA-2 Guideline) surface-to-air missile and crashed near Sverdlovsk.“

[Loose}{Cannon]

To be fair...   If one parked its butt right next to me, I would likely crap a Volvo.    Just sayin.

[kenne]

 Yeah maybe, but I would only go maybe 30/40 yards and see what was gonna happen. After all, I'm barefoot and its 20 below...

[Loose}{Cannon]

Yeah maybe, but I would only go maybe 30/40 yards and see what was gonna happen. After all, I'm barefoot and its 20 below...

This is true!   

Whats that if F°?  Like right around 0?

[Lyndasez]

Lol, LC, yeah, if I saw BL parked outside my tent...I’d stay INSIDE! Last thing I’d do would disturb it or create an air/earth vibration by crazily ripping through the tent and marching away...

[mk]

Whats that if F°?  Like right around 0?

-20C = -4F
-25C = -13F

Definitely cold, but not the coldest night of the year in those parts.  Of course, wind chill would make it worse.  In my experience, at those temps, you might run outside for a few minutes without proper clothing if you expected to be able to come back & warm up immediately.  I think I mentioned on the comments page that I remember having to evacuate my college dorm in those temps when someone burnt the popcorn & the fire alarms all went off.  We had on shoes and sweaters, but no coats.  It was cold enough to make your nose hairs start to freeze, but we weren't in agony or anything.  And, obviously, we were back inside in 30 min. or so.

It's a good question, why they'd go all the way down the hill (nearly a mile!) rather than just partway.

Assuming that they were able to think clearly & act accordingly (i.e. putting aside psychosis, hallucinations, injuries, or villains forcing them), they must have thought they were safer in the forest than on the open hillside. This implies either that they thought the problem at the tent would not be resolved in a matter of minutes, or that the danger was so large that the hikers felt they must go nearly a mile away to be safe from it.

One important question is why their footprints remained long enough to be found by the search crew--a situation which, I understand, hasn't been successfully replicated.  In the photos, you can see that the footprints actually seem to be raised, and the snow around them blown away.  This would happen if the snow under their feet had been slightly warmed, packed, & then refrozen so as to make it a bit harder than the surrounding snow. 

Ball lightning theory includes the idea that it was the heat from the "lightning" (or whatever it technically is) which slightly warmed the snow enough to freeze the footprints in place.  If this were so, then it might be reason enough to head for the treeline: to escape the larger area which the lightning might impact, indicated by the radius of the heat.

[Loose}{Cannon]

I would imagine if said heat source was able to melt snow, there would be no foot prints?

Having lived in PA (cold enough for me), I have personally made tracks around my property that compressed the snow under weight, and later the wind having blown away the surrounding areas creating exactly what we see in (one) of the pictures.  I dont think heat or melting at the time they were created had anything to do with their existence.  Lust my .02 cents worth of course. 

[Lyndasez]

“ I dont think heat or melting at the time they were created had anything to do with their existence.  Lust my .02 cents worth of course.“

If they were walking socks only, the heat from their bods melted the snow...that accounts for no prints from the 2 who were in boots.

Also there would be melted snow, surface destruction where the lighting hit...scorched, broken branches, scorches on clothes and bodies...scattered rocks...

[Loose}{Cannon]

Good point.   

[mk]

Yeah, that makes sense, too. 

Is that what was supposed to be in the cedar?  Burnt branches like some kind of lightning, but without the "strike" pattern?  I'm fuzzy on all that.

Yeah, I've seen "standing" footprints without the snow having to warm significantly, now that I think about it.

[Loose}{Cannon]

I have yet to read anything in the official documents suggesting anything was burned other then the two Yuris and the remnants of wood in the fire pit.

[sarapuk]

According to Alexander Popoff ;
The branches on the cedar were broken up to five meters high, suggesting that someone from the group had climbed up to look for something, perhaps the tent. Some of the high branches of the nearby trees were burned, too, as if an explosion happened in the air.

 Also ;
 Lev Ivanov the man in charge of the investigation also claimed later on that during the search, they noticed that the tops of many trees had been burnt and that he was forced by the KGB to remove any mention of lights in the sky from the report given by various Mansi witnesses.