<Book Spoiler Alert> The reason the hikers pitched their tent on the ridge?

[eurocentric]

If geologists were surveying for uranium deposits, they would use radiation detectors (scintillation chambers) in a helicopter or plane. This method was used from the '40s. Then they would drill cores into the ground to get more precise data but this is dangerous because radon gas and/or contaminated groundwater can come up... and needs equipment like a drill, trucks to transport it there and take the cores for analysis, so there would be vehicle tracks.
They would not be dropping explosives from a helicopter or putting them on tree trunks, how does that achieve anything? Is this in the book?

I didn't intend to suggest the book made that specific point, and have clarified that in an answer to Star Man. I suggested an additional way they may have been clearing trees on areas of interest.

The fear of explosions/activity seen and heard, or of encountering undetonated charges in stumps on the ground, may IMO have put the hikers off the whole idea of camping in the forest, or finding kindling as daylight receded.

[eurocentric]

Whatever happened it is unlikely that it happened on the ridge.  The forest makes much more sense.  The major traumas of the rav 4 probably happened at the same time from the Same event.  They probably died before the others.   Hence the lower number of superficial injuries and frost bite.   Those who lived longer attained their superficial injuries and frost bite in their struggle to survive following the event?.

I haven't read the book yet so am puzzled as to why geologists would be dropping dynamite from a helicopter to look for magnetic anomalies or clear the way to drill core samples, but will try to understand when I read the book.

Regards

Star man

The book doesn't state helicopters were used. This is eurocentric's desperate attempt to explain the eagle photo. 

You must have missed the bits about the sky being so observedly busy with the things that it's suggested the last 3 hikers tried to get to the crest of 1079 to raise the alarm over their trapped comrades, or how geologists transported the bodies in sample crates to be washed at the local morgue, using helicopters, etc. When I asked Teddy in her teaser thread ahead of publication if the whirlies were used she confirmed "they played a key role too".

Oh i didn't know that helicopters were used to transport the bodies. I thought they put them on the train at the local train station. Discussing the case with you is an education....

I have no idea why all you seem to want to do in this forum is argue irrelevant points instead of addressing any thread's main issue, and if you haven't derailed topics that way you'll hijack them into a discourse about your beloved X-Files.

[eurocentric]

But now there is a more obvious explanation for why the hikers may have chosen to 'head for the hills' - they arrived at that pass mid afternoon, looking to find somewhere to pitch their tent, in a forest, it was still daylight, and all this activity and its dangers was there. They would also hesitate to search for adequate firewood with this going on. So, late in the day, unplanned and unprepared, they headed to higher ground, somewhere up safe, away from the danger zone, and also where they could be seen.

And having camped on the ridge and the wind picking up, stated in the book to be up to 35 metres-per-second (that's 78mph), and temperatures producing an arctic -63C wind chill, it seems obvious what happens thereafter, and they end up in the forest later that evening when the activity is safely over, minus their tent, tools and clothes.

Wouldn't it be safer just to camp outside the test area in the forest? The risk assessment of camping on an exposed hillside would still be the same. I guess I can imagine them wanting to push on.

But if they did camp on the hill and walk barefoot and unequipped to the forest, having lost their senses due to hyperthermia, they wouldn't have been in a state to do much work. And their injuries suggest they'd been in a fight.

I'd say not, not when at lower elevation and as the day set in, in deteriorating weather, and with little way of communicating with these men, especially if they were actually dropping dynamite from the helicopter. The risk of being injured still applies, so heading to higher ground, above the treeline, becomes your best defence.

The book inadvertently provides the first logical reason for the hikers pitching up there, ironically so given it was trying to suggest 4 part-moonwalking men did it, and this fooled the rescue team, who had even felt able to determine the tallest hiker walked at the back, which would be from shoe size and snow depression.

Once they're up there people can work out numerous ideas of what happens next, as this forum always has, but in those estimated weather conditions surely hypothermia has to be an element, even if not the whole explanation, for why they left. Once in the shelter of the forest, and because they wouldn't all be equally affected, and from the warmth of a fire estimated to have burned 1.5hrs (log thickness) they are able to do things, but the end result is always going to be the same through exhaustion, different stamina levels and physiologies, and varying degrees of clothing insulation, which they desperately supplement where possible.

As regards the suggestion they had been fighting, something I've read here since I first visited this forum, and accepted and even reproduced in my posts, I'm doubtful that was ever the case. The autopsies did not suggest these knuckle injuries were indicative of a fight, it's this site in the autopsy section, where it states "metacarpophalangeal joints on the right hand had brown red bruises. This is common injury in hand to hand fights. To get a better idea of the injuries just make a fist. This is the part of the hand which you use to hit someone."
 
I think it will be tastefully okay for me to reproduce a cropped colourised image of Igor's hands as example. He was right-sided and his hand was found sticking above the snow. There are unbroken contusions, erythema there, but when people fight they typically break the skin of the knuckles and there's some bleeding. Yet not a single knuckle is affected and his leading knuckle isn't as bad as the others. Only one hand is affected, yet it's commonly suggested he'd been fighting with both hands, as if for his life.

I completely agree, regarding the injuries.  As someone who camps and hikes, a lot, and as someone who is disabled and falls on these camping and hiking trips, a lot, I've come home sometimes looking like I went three rounds with Mike Tyson.  If they were already suffering from the fatigue and exhaustion of the hike, compiled by the lack of coordination and other cold related physical issues, they were falling and crawling at times.  When you are desperately cold, your extremities pull in closer to your body.  You fall, you land on your knuckles and faces.

Yes, and additionally Igor was not kitted out for the night, without gloves, shoes, hat or coat, so he had even less protection not only from the elements, the effect of which would render him clumsy, but also no cushioning against any impacts. 

Something's just occurred to me related to how Igor's body was found, to potentially explain why only his right hand had any knuckle injury. His left arm looked to either be hooked around a birch sapling or if not had that preventing full extension to the ground on his left, whereas his right arm was free. The autopsy conclusion mentions how the agonal stage may part explain some injuries, so with him dying on his back only his free right hand may have injured itself then.

"The above-mentioned damage was caused both during life, as well as in the agonal and post-mortem states."

[Nigel Evans]

Whatever happened it is unlikely that it happened on the ridge.  The forest makes much more sense.  The major traumas of the rav 4 probably happened at the same time from the Same event.  They probably died before the others.   Hence the lower number of superficial injuries and frost bite.   Those who lived longer attained their superficial injuries and frost bite in their struggle to survive following the event?.

I haven't read the book yet so am puzzled as to why geologists would be dropping dynamite from a helicopter to look for magnetic anomalies or clear the way to drill core samples, but will try to understand when I read the book.

Regards

Star man

The book doesn't state helicopters were used. This is eurocentric's desperate attempt to explain the eagle photo. 

You must have missed the bits about the sky being so observedly busy with the things that it's suggested the last 3 hikers tried to get to the crest of 1079 to raise the alarm over their trapped comrades, or how geologists transported the bodies in sample crates to be washed at the local morgue, using helicopters, etc. When I asked Teddy in her teaser thread ahead of publication if the whirlies were used she confirmed "they played a key role too".

Oh i didn't know that helicopters were used to transport the bodies. I thought they put them on the train at the local train station. Discussing the case with you is an education....

I have no idea why all you seem to want to do in this forum is argue irrelevant points instead of addressing any thread's main issue, and if you haven't derailed topics that way you'll hijack them into a discourse about your beloved X-Files.

The main issue of your thread is that they suffered hypothermia, yes? When i point out that there is good reason to suppose that two members were well dressed and elsewhere (converging tracks) and that this somewhat undermines the whole idea, i get thrown a lot of nonsense about the sky being busy with helicopters because Teddy said so? Jeez.

[Manti]

Ok so some members of the group are suffering cognitive effects of hypothermia in the tent, but those who are still ok decide to help everyone down to the forest and light a fire. In this case, while it is an emergency situation it is not that urgent that they have to leave behind all clothing they weren't wearing. In fact the most reasonable thing to do would be for someone to stay behind for a few minutes, collect all clothes in a backpack and take it with them to the campfire where the others can then be dressed fully, or the clothes dried on branches around the fire if these were wet for some reason.

[ash73]

Gradual onset of hypothermia doesn't explain them cutting their way out the tent in such a hurry, while in the middle of preparing dinner.

Most likely reason for setting up on the ridge was Dyatlov wanted the challenge, they'd already had to back-track the previous day so he wouldn't want to do it again.

[Nigel Evans]

Gradual onset of hypothermia doesn't explain them cutting their way out the tent in such a hurry, while in the middle of preparing dinner.

Most likely reason for setting up on the ridge was Dyatlov wanted the challenge, they'd already had to back-track the previous day so he wouldn't want to do it again.

Most likely reason is connected with a camera with a filter set on a tripod....

[ash73]

Most likely reason is connected with a camera with a filter set on a tripod....

What do you think they were planning to photograph?

Meteors, rocket crashes, etc are spontaneous, they couldn't plan for it.

What sort of filter was it? A clear UV/IR cut filter, or a moon filter?

[Nigel Evans]

Most likely reason is connected with a camera with a filter set on a tripod....

What do you think they were planning to photograph?

Meteors, rocket crashes, etc are spontaneous, they couldn't plan for it.
Ivanov would have said - fireorbs.
What sort of filter was it? A clear UV/IR cut filter, or a moon filter?
It's in the case files, from memory a yellow UV filter.

[Teddy]

If they camped on the ridge to avoid the risk of explosives, why would they go to the same area later on, in the dark? If they were suffering from hyperthermia, why leave their clothes behind? If they planned to make a fire, why leave cutting tools behind?

It's possible they camped there to avoid some danger, but it doesn't explain anything other than they got cold which makes their actions even more inexplicable - if they lost their minds due to hyperthermia how did they do so much work in the trees?

Their injuries are among the few trustworthy facts and must be explained. Crawling on fists doesn't explain face injuries. If they fell, they'd injure their palms. If Rustem died first, why were his hands injured? Why were those in the den different?

I find it interesting the pathologist said the bruising happened 1-2 days before they died, and there were no more diary entries during that period... I think this was a lot more drawn out than just reacting to what they saw while hiking that afternoon.

I've illustrated how there can be alternative explanations for some of their injuries, even though that to me is not what is most important unless the injuries were truly suspicious. To use the injuries as a starting point and then work backwards is a fundamental mistake IMO. I think it requires resolving the starting point.

If an old lady lived alone and didn't normally use the stairs but was found dead at the foot of them, she'd banged her head, gashed her brittle skin and broken her wrist and had a lot of bruising, a couple of bannister rails broken, her death would be described at autopsy as 'violent'. It was not a natural death. People would not then focus on her injuries, unless suspicious or there were signs of a third party being present, they would instead wonder what she was doing up there, and why she was dressed only in her underwear with the central heating off and with only one slipper on. Accepting that she was up there and dressed like that makes the injuries almost inevitable.

Hypothermia has a number of mental not just physical effects. It affects cognition and it renders people amnesiac. And physically it can make them either remove clothing or remain underdressed if that was their pre-existing situation. The tent on the ridge, with wind chill rising, would be an extremely exposed place, but the group would not all be affected to the same level.

Once the hikers recognise some have hypothermia they needed to be brought down off the ridge if the tent/stove is not usable or they would die inside the tent. The whole purpose of descending to the forest would be to recover, to seek shelter within trees, to light a fire with the fuel there, and later on the perceived danger may have gone or by then they had no choice but to take the risk.

The least affected would initiate this evacuation and recovery attempt, and the core temperatures of others may have recovered slightly while there, but there is a price to pay for all this activity, once blood sugar energy has gone exhaustion will kill because the body can no longer fuel its own furnace and regulate itself to normal temperature so they end up immobile on the ground to freeze or collapse from heart failure.

[Nigel Evans]

If they camped on the ridge to avoid the risk of explosives, why would they go to the same area later on, in the dark? If they were suffering from hyperthermia, why leave their clothes behind? If they planned to make a fire, why leave cutting tools behind?

It's possible they camped there to avoid some danger, but it doesn't explain anything other than they got cold which makes their actions even more inexplicable - if they lost their minds due to hyperthermia how did they do so much work in the trees?

Their injuries are among the few trustworthy facts and must be explained. Crawling on fists doesn't explain face injuries. If they fell, they'd injure their palms. If Rustem died first, why were his hands injured? Why were those in the den different?

I find it interesting the pathologist said the bruising happened 1-2 days before they died, and there were no more diary entries during that period... I think this was a lot more drawn out than just reacting to what they saw while hiking that afternoon.

I've illustrated how there can be alternative explanations for some of their injuries, even though that to me is not what is most important unless the injuries were truly suspicious. To use the injuries as a starting point and then work backwards is a fundamental mistake IMO. I think it requires resolving the starting point.

If an old lady lived alone and didn't normally use the stairs but was found dead at the foot of them, she'd banged her head, gashed her brittle skin and broken her wrist and had a lot of bruising, a couple of bannister rails broken, her death would be described at autopsy as 'violent'. It was not a natural death. People would not then focus on her injuries, unless suspicious or there were signs of a third party being present, they would instead wonder what she was doing up there, and why she was dressed only in her underwear with the central heating off and with only one slipper on. Accepting that she was up there and dressed like that makes the injuries almost inevitable.

Hypothermia has a number of mental not just physical effects. It affects cognition and it renders people amnesiac. And physically it can make them either remove clothing or remain underdressed if that was their pre-existing situation. The tent on the ridge, with wind chill rising, would be an extremely exposed place, but the group would not all be affected to the same level.

Once the hikers recognise some have hypothermia they needed to be brought down off the ridge if the tent/stove is not usable or they would die inside the tent. The whole purpose of descending to the forest would be to recover, to seek shelter within trees, to light a fire with the fuel there, and later on the perceived danger may have gone or by then they had no choice but to take the risk.

The least affected would initiate this evacuation and recovery attempt, and the core temperatures of others may have recovered slightly while there, but there is a price to pay for all this activity, once blood sugar energy has gone exhaustion will kill because the body can no longer fuel its own furnace and regulate itself to normal temperature so they end up immobile on the ground to freeze or collapse from heart failure.

It's rank nonsense to suggest that they went down in their socks to escape hypothermia aided by others who were better dressed and suffering less (who then made a fire and a den). So why not collect footwear/clothing and other supplies like food?

Ditto it's rank nonsense to suggest that the strange skin darkening or that on discovery of the crushed bodies in the ravine Urakov's journey from Moscow to Sverdlovsk to personally shut the case down is irrelevant.

A lot of nonsense on this forum of late....