Think about what the elderly nurse said: "They were very dirty". Indeed they would have been, but not from a mud slide. Forget the snow and the "mud". What else is in the forest? Remember when you made the comment that it would all end up being very sad? You could not have been more right.
Trees. I always considered that they could have been thrown against a tree by an explosion, but I suppose a tree could have been blown onto the tent too.
Sadness yes. I have always assumed that whatever happened it was unintentional. Some kind of tragic accident. A series of human errors that started when Dyatlov submitted his planned route. But from what I understand bad news and accidents like this were looked upon quite harshly in the USSR at the time. These days an accident, even a military one, would result in an investigation, and they would identify the root cause and learn from it. There may be repercussions if gross negligence was proven, but hot simple human error I would think. I suppose at the time there was enough concern to cover it up. I still need to read the book though to see how this theory strings together. I am interested in which of tge different scenes are staged and how. The tent is clearly.
Regards
Star man.