I've never believed they pitched where they did out of choice, the only logic I could work from stated evidence was someone, or simply the fear of them, drove them up there late in the day, unprepared, to be up high and out-of-reach overnight. Bar Semyon they were a vulnerable young group of city wussies, none of them would even square up to a drunk who accused them of stealing vodka on the train, and they were unarmed. For example, an altercation with the solitary deer hunter whose tracks they'd followed and whose recently abandoned camp they'd found, or to avoid the escapees they would hear about while at Vizhay, becoming more anxious the deeper they got into the wilderness.
The 1959 case resolution makes only short-term logic. It suggested they wished to attain and then retain altitude en route to Mount Otorten and would link this to the earlier difficulties they'd had wading through deep snow lower down, which had seen them decide to jettison the equivalent of a man's weight in provisions at the labaz, and in the last diary entry had become so tired they didn't bother having a fire pit outside.
However, they did something else at the labaz, they prepared firewood and left it there for their return loop back to Vizhay. They were thinking ahead, about staying warm in a forest. If they were to pitch on 1079 overnight, and then again on Otorten (Igor told Vizhayans he might pitch
there) that would either mean 2 nights without adequate firewood up on 'the ridge', or descending the very next day to a forest to find more wood and then back up to Otorten.
Here, in a previous hike of Igor's, with the same tent and stove, and in better weather, with clear skies in most of the photo's, and low winds, was how well prepared they were
then on the fuel front:
The man in charge of orchestrating the rescue initially thought, to work the logic, that they had planned to
cross over the ridge at 1079 and drop down the other side, but were beaten back by high winds so fell back and pitched where they did, this mirroring the way they'd previously dropped back 1000m down a pass when it proved too difficult.
That at least made fuller logical sense than the purposefully attaining altitude theory, and having started their ascent, it was claimed, around 3pm, darkness would soon fall, and then this would leave them without adequate firewood for an all-night burn in a very exposed position - some wood was found in the corner of the tent, but it wasn't referred to as substantial, enough to support the retaining altitude theory.
The only suggestion there is of pitching on 1079, the ascent of which wasn't part of the hiking plan submitted to the university, comes from Igor's last diary entry, but the ambiguity needs to be read in the full context of what prefaced it. Note also, how with darkness falling at 4:29pm, they start looking to pitch the tent around 4pm, and yet set off up 1079 at 3?
31st January 1959
It's nearly 4. Have to start looking for a place to pitch the tent. We go south in the Auspiya valley. Seems this place has the deepest snow. Wind not strong, snow 1.22 m deep. We’re exhausted, but start setting up for the night. Firewood is scarce, mostly damp firs. We build the campfire on the logs, too tired to dig a fire pit. Dinner’s in the tent. Nice and warm. Can’t imagine such comfort on the ridge, with howling wind outside, hundreds of kilometers away from human settlements.
Topic: Being realistic (Read 35393 times)
