The Last Leg

[gunmat]

When I first began reading about the case, I immediately noticed the short distance the group covered on the final leg until reaching the location where the tent was found. It's presumed they had spent the night in the forested area on the southern slope of Dyatlov Pass, where they had left behind a supply depot they didn't need for the rest of the journey. These locations are precisely marked, allowing for the measurement of the distance to the tent, which is also precisely marked. There's approximately a 2 km distance between these points along the ground.

By leaving some equipment there, they had less to carry on the final day. It seems there was less snow on the way to the tent. However, they reported encountering deep snow and difficulties with mobility in the valley as they struggled forward. Nevertheless, they covered a greater distance several times than on the final leg while carrying heavier loads. This doesn't quite add up. Something must have happened on the final day.

To emphasize: In the diary entry dated 31st January, Igor complains that they can only manage 1.5 to 2 km per hour. If we take his estimate as the basis, the group would take about an hour to reach the location where the tent was found. This is very peculiar.

Perhaps they were caught off guard by bad weather? Did disagreements arise about the route ahead? Or did they take a detour and not go over the pass as the map shows?

[Arjan]

I suppose you are referring to the last day trip from the storage to the place where the tent had been found by the first search party as indicated on the map below?



After carefully reading this map, I came to the conclusion that the group had to climb from 550 m to 850 m above sea-level over a distance of around 1000 m.

This involves a slope with an inclination of 35 % on average! Not an easy climb carrying 30 kg in an old style backpack and carrying skis and skipoles by hand.

According to my estimation, the group had started the day at sunrise 8:30 am, had breakfast and made the storage, had lunch around 12:00 am.
Very probably the climb had taken half an hour to cover 1000 m and one to two hours to climb 350 m: in total more than two hours: not bad regarding the circumstances, not good either, because - reading the diaries - not all members had been 'top fit'.

The day before, the group had to return, because they had not been able to make this ascend in the (late?) afternoon.
 

[GlennM]

Cigarette smokers going uphill in snow and a headwind.

[gunmat]

I insist that the final leg until where the tent was found is remarkably short, compared to the distances they covered in the days prior. Particularly noteworthy is the second-to-last leg, where they nearly reached the ridge before turning around and descending 2-300 meters to set up camp. The last leg is 1.7-2 km long, with an average incline of 14.5 degrees and a maximum incline of 27 degrees. The steepest part is where they went the day before and decided to seek shelter further down the slope. No, I find this peculiar.

[GlennM]

Gunmat, yes it is peculiar. As I think about it, I imagine a situation where the group is fully equipped. They look ahead to Ortoten and decide between speed and comfort. They choose speed by caching suupplies. This works to their advantage because when they start out again, the weather is umfavorable. They make as much progress as possible and decide to make an early camp, likely to wait out the weather. Perhaps, instead of improving, the weather continued to deteriorate to the point where the tent itself became compromised. A damaged tent is no help and going back to the cache means staying on the high ground. It would be prudent to put the wind to your back and use it to push you and your team down slope into the woods where a fire and temporary shelter will keep you alive until things get better. They did not get better soon enough.

[gunmat]

Yes, the final stretch is simply too short. So something happened. There has been speculation as to why they ascended this slope and pitched the tent there, under the prevailing weather conditions. It has also been suggested that they navigated incorrectly due to poor visibility. Yuri Yudin believed that the group chose to pitch the tent on this slope to avoid losing altitude before the crucial push towards Otorten. It's simply odd that they didn't backtrack the same way they came and seek shelter where they last stayed if the weather became too challenging. It would have taken them a maximum of 15 to 20 minutes. I highly doubt they pitched the tent in such an exposed area, awaiting better weather. They would have sought shelter if the weather became unmanageable or chosen a different route further east of the pass. Regardless, the tent wasn't hit by an avalanche. Any snowflake that fell on the tent wouldn't have caused any damage and wouldn't have caused panic. I have no theory about what happened that day, but I find the tent's placement very strange.

[WinterLeia]

I do not believe they were lost. They at least knew where the forest was, because they did not have any problem heading for it in the middle of the night after whatever disaster struck that made them abandon the tent. So even if they were unsure of their destination, that wouldn’t be a reason for picking such an odd camping site. Plus, were they really that far off the trail? There seems to be various answers to this. The last diary entries seem to indicate that they knew where they needed to go, but they were having trouble overcoming the various obstacles standing in their way, due to a mixture of worsening conditions and exhaustion.

[GlennM]

I subscribe to the standard explanation, meaning the tent was last set on 1079. Why? Primarily, the location of the cache is convincing. That they traversed little ground implies they could not or would not go further. My sense is that they were making slow progress against blizzard conditions. Stubbornness prevented then from retreating a second time back to the site of the cache. Getting the highest grade certification must have made them ,determined in the face the inclement weather. They were camping with a servicable tent on a shoestring budget with a deadline to get back home. There was not a lot of time to spare. They had already lost a day. If instead, they went to the forest and worked toward Ortoten, they would have deeper snow and the woods themselves to work through. They kept to the high ground but left the tent, not for the cache, but with the wind at their backs, they made for the woods. Why? I think snow crushed the tent and they could not dig out at the time, so they retreated for the forest.

[WinterLeia]

This is probably a stupid idea, but considering a tree falling on the group is a going theory, I kind of wondered if Dyatlov could have been worried that in a storm a tree might snap and fall on them, maybe in conjunction with falling snow? One of the diaries did mention that at one point it was snowing without snowing because I guess it was coming from the branches. Is there any conditions that might have led Dyatlov to believe camping on the slope would be safer than camping in the forest?

[GlennM]

The tree theory has its merits, primarily for shelter and access to firewood and water. A blowdown or a random fall is certainly possible. The hikers are not going to tie off on a loose tree, surely. A nearby tree could fall and perhaps even cause injuries suggested in Teddy's theory. Of course there are things that argue against it such as the physical locations of the hikers and the tent. No blood or tree residue was noted on the tent.

What I find compelling is the labaz. It is above Dyatlov Pass. That pass should have been taken in order for the hikers to camp at the cedar. But apparantly they did not cross there. So I imagine that they crossed over in the high ground. Now, looking ahead to Ortoten, who would deliberately turn away from it and go downslope to the forest, only to fight their way back up to Ortoten? No, they had won the high ground, but were beaten back by the weather, losing a day. Surely they felt that they could get to their goal without losing ground. It was a good idea. Nature is indifferent to ideas.

[Arjan]

The details found by both search parties are revealing: this is obvious.

Several items - that nowadays is so obvious for a trip in a cold area in the mountains - are not found by both search parties.

Three of these items - that are not found by both search parties - are:
- maps of the area
- a gasoline stove for heating food and water in case of emergency
- basic mountaineering gear beyond two ice-axes.
Update on maps: The notebook of Maslennikov - scan 13 - indicates that the group had several maps with them.

Personally I think that the group did not have these items/gear with them.

The absence of maps may have caused that the group had not passed the Dyatlov pass.
The absence of a gasoline stove may have caused that group members had to look for running water: the ravine had been the possible source nearby.
The absence of adequate gear for self arrest may have caused that one or two members had not been able to perform a self-arrest after making a slide on the ascend to the passage above the Dyatlov pass.

[Arjan]

This kind of winterhikes pose a general challenge: lack of daylight.

Sunrise had been at that day/place: 8:30 am
Sunset on a flat area at that day/place: 17:00 pm
This leaves 9 hours for activities during 'daylight'.

On a normal hiking day, this group had used around 1.5 hour the break up and around 1.5 hour to arrange a camping site for the night. 
This leaves 6 hours for tracking.

The campsite east of Kholat Syakhl had posed a very specific challenge.
The journalist collective Aleksej Rakitin has shown on page 110 of the German edition 'Die Toten vom Djatlow-Pass':
- on that day/place the sun had disappeared at the camp site around 14:30 pm behind Kholat Syakl.

Everyone who has been in the mountains knows that it will cool quickly in case the sun sets behind the mountains.

This fact may be an additional reason for the short last leg.

[GlennM]

 Arjan, you bring up a valid point. Perhaps this is why late starts were noted in a diary. They were Slow to rise and slow to get going. Does it give us a clue? For me, barring physical problems, a slow pace suggests casual confidence, attutude, or hubris, depending on one's point of view.  If it was indeed a physical problem, that points to weather. Again, there is language in a diary about that.

If one believes as I do that the final camp was on 1079, we could make the case that the hikers were forced off the slope for better shelter or to save one of their own. Too,since weather is at issue, once they got to the area of the cedar, we need no tent to have Teddy's tree come down. It was allegedly very windy.

The overall impression I get is that the hikers were striking a balance between physical exertion and mental relaxation before returning to the daily grind back home. It was just more predictable at home.

[Partorg]

On February 1, they did not advance far, as they left the camp lateb Left late, because firstly apparently woke up late as always, and secondly, because it took a long time to assemble the labaz.
Dry wood in the area, as noted in the diary dated January 31, was scarce, but having a ready supply of firewood for the fire by the time we returned from Otorten was more than desirable.
In principle, could stay on Auspiya for one more night, giving themselves an unplanned day off (d'nyovka) but they decided not to do this and spend the rest of the day taking a starting position on the upper contours of the Ridge.
A long climb, even on a slope of 15°, takes quite a lot of energy, and they preferred to do it in the evening, so that in the morning, with fresh strength, they would move along a hard relatively flat surface to Otorten and, if the weather did not drive them off the Ridge into the Lozva Valley, to return in the evening to Auspiya.
Naturally, the discomfort of spending the night on the Ridge was easily predictable, but a sports hike was not a Sunday picnic and they were mentally prepared for it.

[Axelrod]

Three of these items - that are not found by both search parties - are:
- maps of the area
- a gasoline stove for heating food and water in case of emergency
- basic mountaineering gear beyond two ice-axes.

Personally I think that the group did not have these items/gear with them.

The absence of maps may have caused that the group had not passed the Dyatlov pass.

See https://dyatlovpass.com/maslennikov-notebook
Scan 13: The following documents were found in Dyatlov's field bag:
1) Nine train tickets Sverdlovsk-Bogoslovsk for 23/1
2) Trek plan (with all the details)
3) Trip book №5 (3 copies - 1 signed Ufimtsev)
4) Protocol of the route commission 1 copy
5) Maps: Sheet R-39, 40 (Syktyvkar, Khanty-М), part of the Ivdel forestry map, several photo maps, 3 tracing paper from forestry maps

[Arjan]

Thank you Axelrod for this additional information.

My reply had been only based on Case files vol 1: sheets 11 - 20.

The notebook of Maslennikov indicates that the group had several maps with them.

Remark on the reply of Partorg:

In case Google maps is correct and my interpretation of this part of the map is correct, then the group had ascended around 350 meter over a distance of 1000 meters: see this relevant part of Google maps:



This is a slope of 35 % or around 20 degrees on average(!): pretty challenging with 30 kg back pack (and 20 kg for the female group members) while carrying two skis and ski poles by hand.

Probably this slope did not have a clear track: it had to be taken into account that the group may well had to find and make a new track.

These kind of slopes pose a risk for sliding group members: in case of a slide, a victim will ascelerate quickly to a speed that poses a high risk of a serious injury.

The post mortem report of Zinaida states:
- 'On the surface of the area of the lower back on the right side of the abdomen there is a graze wound of bright red color in the form of a strip sized 26 x 6 cm.'

This graze wound may well have been caused by a small tree that had stopped Zinaida during/after a slide.
Frame 28 from film no 1 may provide a hint: Zinaida is standing bent while Alexander is looking worried in the direction of Zinaida/Lyudmila.
Of course not a full sound proof.