What I am reading is an opinion that the kinds of injuries found on the victims is inconsistent with the crushing force on the tent. Consequently, it is unlikely that those with crippling injuries would be able to, let alone better off by evacuating the tent for the cover of the forest. I can accept that conclusion readily. I can also accept the corollary that the injuries were sustained away from the tent. I also accept that the tent was not moved by the hikers from the forest to the slope. In fact, the footprints make it clear that nobody a ground level walked the tent uphill either.
I have difficulty with the differentiation between avalanche, slab slide and slump. It is clear that outside ski poles were broken and mooring lines detached from the tent. That does not happen by itself. The tent had end poles which were not knocked down, so that rules out a large sweeping rush of snow. (think avalanche). However, anything less than that causes me to think, it was not so bad that they (nine of them) couldn't clear the snow and repair the tent at the time. Yet, they left in an orderly way.
If we had evidence that any one person was blown down the slope and others formed a rescue party, that would explain much, but the footprints and other trace evidence do not support it. I certainly do not think slashing up a serviceable tent is going to aide in the rescue of a fellow hiker.
The tent was cut in a way that is consistent with survival in a snow slide. Too, the footprints of the hikers was obscured a few hundred meters below the tent, was that another snow slide? For me, the only explanation which does not require the piling on of additional assumptions is that it was snow, more than a slump and less than an avalanche which trapped them in the canvas. I suspect that darkness and canvas layered with heavy snow, made them cut free. The forest was just tentative refuge until conditions improved. All the injuries happened on the way down, while there and on the way back.
Topic: Forensic constraints on the tent-site trauma in the Dyatlov incident (Read 3124 times)