Average speed while cross-country skiing vs Dyatlov Group's speed

[Manti]

I am wondering how fast someone goes while cross-country ski hiking.

Average walking speed is 3.5 miles/h (5.6km/h).

For cross-country skiing, I have found the values 8mph (12.8km/h) for recreational skiers and 15mph for professional racers.

I have done a rough trace of the route they covered, from 2nd Northern to the tent site. This does not include possible detours due to navigation errors, though I did include the attempted crossing at the pass, then turning back to the Auspiya valley and back up to the tent again. Otherwise it's just tracing Lozva then Auspiya:

Total distance: 49.4km.


At average walking speed, it looks like this can be covered in 9 hours?

And skiing is faster than walking, using the 12.8km/h estimate, this could be covered in 4 hours?


In the group diary entry for 31-Jan, it can be read that they are now in deep snow and not following a trail, thus cannot do more than 1.5km/h. Assuming this is somewhere near the pass in the Auspiya valley, for example 7km from the tent site, that distance could still be covered in 5 hours.


According to the same diary, they started on the 28-Jan before noon from 2nd Northern, including that day, it took 5 days to reach the pass.

Counting with 7 hours per day, this is a speed of 1.4km/h, slower than in the deep snow without a trail. But for most of the trip, they were skiing on frozen rivers.

These are all just rough estimates but the speed they achieved seems to be way too slow. Is something wrong with my calculations?

[Manti]

The length of daylight per day was more than 7 hours:


Source: https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/@1505260?month=1&year=1959

[marieuk]

have you read Ninja's post? It suggests 30th January was their last day and not 1st Feb.  How long do you estimate it would take them to reach the  Pass by your calculations?

[Manti]

Well it's hard to tell, I am not a skier. I have only done multi-day hikes on foot, horseback and bicycle and not in the winter.

But even assuming skiing speed not exceeding average walking speed, which is probably already an affront to skiers, two days. So they would be at the pass on the evening of 29-Jan.

The apparent rate of 49km in 5 days seems to suggest they skied no more than 1 hour / day. Which is possible but quite odd?....




I think I've read ninja's post, the one mentioning faked diaries right?

[marieuk]

yes that's the post.  well that does seem odd as you say.

[sarapuk]

I am wondering how fast someone goes while cross-country ski hiking.

Average walking speed is 3.5 miles/h (5.6km/h).

For cross-country skiing, I have found the values 8mph (12.8km/h) for recreational skiers and 15mph for professional racers.

I have done a rough trace of the route they covered, from 2nd Northern to the tent site. This does not include possible detours due to navigation errors, though I did include the attempted crossing at the pass, then turning back to the Auspiya valley and back up to the tent again. Otherwise it's just tracing Lozva then Auspiya:

Total distance: 49.4km.


At average walking speed, it looks like this can be covered in 9 hours?

And skiing is faster than walking, using the 12.8km/h estimate, this could be covered in 4 hours?


In the group diary entry for 31-Jan, it can be read that they are now in deep snow and not following a trail, thus cannot do more than 1.5km/h. Assuming this is somewhere near the pass in the Auspiya valley, for example 7km from the tent site, that distance could still be covered in 5 hours.


According to the same diary, they started on the 28-Jan before noon from 2nd Northern, including that day, it took 5 days to reach the pass.

Counting with 7 hours per day, this is a speed of 1.4km/h, slower than in the deep snow without a trail. But for most of the trip, they were skiing on frozen rivers.

These are all just rough estimates but the speed they achieved seems to be way too slow. Is something wrong with my calculations?

No 2 cases are alike and its the same with expeditions. All sorts of things can crop up to alter the plans. Bad weather is a big factor in expeditions. Terrain is another big factor.

[cennetkusu]

I think the group was in no hurry and they took the march slowly. This is understood from the photographs. It is a slow and fun journey .... And they only covered 15 km a day.

[Manti]

No 2 cases are alike and its the same with expeditions. All sorts of things can crop up to alter the plans. Bad weather is a big factor in expeditions. Terrain is another big factor.

Yes, but they wrote about good weather except towards the end and they skied on frozen rivers which is the smoothest terrain.

I think the group was in no hurry and they took the march slowly. This is understood from the photographs. It is a slow and fun journey .... And they only covered 15 km a day.

Could be.. But even 15km a day would mean, they would have already reached Otorten, which was only a further 15.6km away (following Lozva's tributaries in the forest), by midday 1-Feb.

[ninja]

I am wondering how fast someone goes while cross-country ski hiking.

Average walking speed is 3.5 miles/h (5.6km/h).

For cross-country skiing, I have found the values 8mph (12.8km/h) for recreational skiers and 15mph for professional racers.

I have done a rough trace of the route they covered, from 2nd Northern to the tent site. This does not include possible detours due to navigation errors, though I did include the attempted crossing at the pass, then turning back to the Auspiya valley and back up to the tent again. Otherwise it's just tracing Lozva then Auspiya:

Total distance: 49.4km.


At average walking speed, it looks like this can be covered in 9 hours?

And skiing is faster than walking, using the 12.8km/h estimate, this could be covered in 4 hours?


In the group diary entry for 31-Jan, it can be read that they are now in deep snow and not following a trail, thus cannot do more than 1.5km/h. Assuming this is somewhere near the pass in the Auspiya valley, for example 7km from the tent site, that distance could still be covered in 5 hours.


According to the same diary, they started on the 28-Jan before noon from 2nd Northern, including that day, it took 5 days to reach the pass.

Counting with 7 hours per day, this is a speed of 1.4km/h, slower than in the deep snow without a trail. But for most of the trip, they were skiing on frozen rivers.

These are all just rough estimates but the speed they achieved seems to be way too slow. Is something wrong with my calculations?

congratulations, you are on the right track and asking the right questions. they could not go there for 5 days and did not go
only three material traces of overnight stays were found, 28 - lozva, 29 - auspija, 20 km from the lozva, 15 km to the pass, 30 - upper reaches of the lozva, cedar
there were no more nights

[sarapuk]

No 2 cases are alike and its the same with expeditions. All sorts of things can crop up to alter the plans. Bad weather is a big factor in expeditions. Terrain is another big factor.

Yes, but they wrote about good weather except towards the end and they skied on frozen rivers which is the smoothest terrain.

I think the group was in no hurry and they took the march slowly. This is understood from the photographs. It is a slow and fun journey .... And they only covered 15 km a day.

Could be.. But even 15km a day would mean, they would have already reached Otorten, which was only a further 15.6km away (following Lozva's tributaries in the forest), by midday 1-Feb.

But what point are you trying to make  !  ? They made adequate progress, until the final stretch.

[KFinn]

There is a bit in Rakitin (you don't need to agree with his conclusions about what happens but he makes some interesting points that might be relative.)  I can't copy and paste so I screenshot the pages as best I could. 

[Manti]

Yes, his calculations are a bit off (but we have the luxury of websites that make these calculations accurately to the second now).. but what he writes here I agree with.

However there is something important to note.. the second is a "loose photo", we don't have the negative. I think it's  possible that someone looked at the negative and determined there is no photo (the negative is unexposed), and then maybe later someone else managed to create this photo on paper from the negative using much stronger illumination / longer exposure of the paper than usual. It could be that the photo was very dark and what we are looking at is a much "enhanced" version.

One thing that hints at this is the shade of the snow and the sky (perhaps there is no sky, but assuming part of the frame would show the horizon), these are the same colour. I think this is because both became really 'overexposed' due to someone trying to enhance the photo so the subject matter (people) are somewhat visible and not completely black.



So this photo might have actually been taken in sunset conditions.

But the lack of enough hours with proper light in any case explains why they only skied for apparently a very short time on the last day. It doesn't really explain the previous days, though..

[KFinn]

Yes, his calculations are a bit off (but we have the luxury of websites that make these calculations accurately to the second now).. but what he writes here I agree with.

However there is something important to note.. the second is a "loose photo", we don't have the negative. I think it's  possible that someone looked at the negative and determined there is no photo (the negative is unexposed), and then maybe later someone else managed to create this photo on paper from the negative using much stronger illumination / longer exposure of the paper than usual. It could be that the photo was very dark and what we are looking at is a much "enhanced" version.

One thing that hints at this is the shade of the snow and the sky (perhaps there is no sky, but assuming part of the frame would show the horizon), these are the same colour. I think this is because both became really 'overexposed' due to someone trying to enhance the photo so the subject matter (people) are somewhat visible and not completely black.



So this photo might have actually been taken in sunset conditions.

But the lack of enough hours with proper light in any case explains why they only skied for apparently a very short time on the last day. It doesn't really explain the previous days, though..

Absolutely!  This is another situation where I wish we had better chain of custody of evidence, to know the photo's origination and provenance!!!  (And a time stamp would have been so very helpful!!!)

[KFinn]

Yes, his calculations are a bit off (but we have the luxury of websites that make these calculations accurately to the second now).. but what he writes here I agree with.

However there is something important to note.. the second is a "loose photo", we don't have the negative. I think it's  possible that someone looked at the negative and determined there is no photo (the negative is unexposed), and then maybe later someone else managed to create this photo on paper from the negative using much stronger illumination / longer exposure of the paper than usual. It could be that the photo was very dark and what we are looking at is a much "enhanced" version.

One thing that hints at this is the shade of the snow and the sky (perhaps there is no sky, but assuming part of the frame would show the horizon), these are the same colour. I think this is because both became really 'overexposed' due to someone trying to enhance the photo so the subject matter (people) are somewhat visible and not completely black.



So this photo might have actually been taken in sunset conditions.

But the lack of enough hours with proper light in any case explains why they only skied for apparently a very short time on the last day. It doesn't really explain the previous days, though..

Not certain if this will help or not.  This is an interview given by Fomenko, who was the leader of the Rostov Pedagogical Institute trek that followed parts of the trail of the Dyatlov group, several days behind.  He talked about how slowly they traveled at times.  It is in Russian but if you can't translate, I can try copy/paste with the translation (though it will be into English, unfortunately.)

http://samlib.ru/p/piskarewa_m_l/fomenko.shtml