RE: Philomath's list of questions ...
A few questions/ reflections:
1) Were the sky tracks (and/or footprints) of the ‘tourists’ up to the camp still visible when the search party found the tent?
Or only the footprints down?
Strange in this case that sky tracks disappeared while footprints created (probably few hours later) were still visible after weeks…
I've never seen any detailed account of the search party's search activities prior to locating the tent site. As such, it's anybody's guess how much (if any) of the Dyatlov party's tracks were still visible on the surface over 3 weeks later.
It's important to remember more than 3 weeks had passed, and it had been snowing with significant winds all the while. The party's ascent route from the south was more or less in the lee of the mountain's flank. The tent site is on the side of the main peak just past the 'saddle' of the pass, and was exposed to the prevailing winds from the west. The valley into which the party fled was less exposed to the wind - particularly once you get to the tree line.
My point is that the only set of tracks readily discoverable (traced circa 500m down-slope from the tent) were the only tracks relatively exposed to the winds for over 3 weeks. It's not a matter of tracks appearing or disappearing; it's simply a matter of tracks being covered / uncovered by subsequent weather.
Once the searchers found the trail they could follow it with little excavation necessary. The searchers lost the trail (or simply quit working to uncover it) about 500m down-slope.
If you examine the final photos (of the party digging a place for the tent) versus the search party photos it seems pretty clear the snow pack at the tent site had diminished during those two weeks.
2) Tents cuts seem to be made when tent was still erected. Is this correct? If so the hypothesis that tourists had to escape from avalanche does not hold….
No one knows the state of the tent at the time the cuts were made. The cuts were not uniformly 'clean'. Their straightest edges are the vertical sides - which could have been the result of simply tearing the fabric along its weave. The tops and bottoms of the two main holes were quite ragged. Two smaller cuts (toward the entrance end of the tent; the end still standing 2 weeks later) are ragged arcs.
The search party included volunteers (e.g., students), and the record mentions some of the searchers had already dug into the tent and rummaged around by the time the senior searchers arrived on the scene. There is no photographic record of the tent site as originally found. Drawings included in the original reports seem to indicate the peak of the still-erect entrance end of the tent was the only part protruding from the snow.
Some accounts suggest one or more of the cuts may have been made by the two student volunteers who first found the tent.
The only basis for the claim the cuts were made from inside the tent was that threads along the edges of the holes were bent outward. The reports indicate this conclusion was reached after examining more than one of the holes, but nowhere does it claim the same thread orientation was evident on all edges of all holes.
3) Is there any estimate about how long a person – not properly dressed – and without boots - as they apparently were - can resist in those temperatures combined with the chill effect of strong winds? It seems to me amazing that they could survive for so long (meaning: walking down from campsite + lighting a fire, walking down + setting a den in the ravine, walking down + trying to go back to the campsite…I don’t want to assume everything happened at the same time) – also if some were injured already at the campsite
The chronology of events has always been pure speculation. One point that's always bugged me is the assumption there was one crisis causing everyone to leave the tent at one time, and that the folks' diverse movements all followed from that single descent event.
A related issue is the assumption that the motivating crisis and their fatal response(s) had to have occurred during the first night at that site. The diary indicates they set up the tent, had a meal, and presumably settled in for the night. It was snowing with substantial winds. What if they didn't leave the tent until the following day? What if they awoke to find themselves snowbound, sent a party to get wood from the valley below (who never returned ...), and at some point desperately descended themselves - perhaps in a rush caused by another event?
Once you step back from the relatively simplistic traditional assumptions there's room for all sorts of variant event chronologies.
The original autopsies allegedly claimed all died circa 6 - 8 hours after the last meal. This has always been assumed to mean the last meal noted in the diary - i.e., in the evening after setting up camp on the pass.
4) Why didn’t they put on the boots? Apparently only Rustem Slobodin wasn’t bootless (1 boot) – is this right? And how many boots were found in the tent? 8 ½ pairs? Is it possible that boots were too wet to be worn after long ascent in difficult weather conditions/deep snow that day?
I've never seen a detailed inventory of the footwear found at the tent versus found with the bodies.
Slobodin was found with a single valenki (traditional Russian felt boot).
Zolotarev was found wearing sewn leather (maybe leather / felt) boots (burki).
I've never been clear what footwear was found on the relatively well-clothed Thibeaux-Brignolle.
All the others were found wearing only socks, ranging from one pair (Dyatlov) to 3 or 4 pairs (depending on the documentation).
At least one person (Dubinina) had wrapped a piece of non-stocking cloth around one of her feet.
5) What about the moon phase that night? Was is pitch dark?
That's unknown. All that's known is that it was snowing when they arrived. Detailed weather data for that remote area was not recorded as of 1959.
6) Footprints seem to indicate the party moved slowly as strides were short and orderly – this seems to exclude they were terrified.
True. This point was cited in the formal reports. The searchers reported that some individual tracks diverged from the main group track, but eventually rejoined it.
The slow and orderly descent could have been caused by deep snow conditions and / or the need to aid one or more of the people (e.g., owing to injuries).
It's also worth pointing out that the only basis for assuming the party descended all at once is that their tracks comprised a single path. The same effect would have been obtained with multiple descents with later evacuees simply following the trail of the earlier ones.
The only clue cited for the sequence of travel is that one set of footprints overlays others and indicates a longer stride. This set was assumed to have been made by the tallest member of the party - Thibeaux-Brignolle.
7) A part cutting the tent and abandoning it without proper clothing, it seems that all other behaviours were oriented to survival, rational and cooperative (?)
Yes - and this is one of the most striking oddities about the incident. The den at which some of the bodies were found would have required patient work to create. This den construction seems misaligned with (what's always been construed as ...) the relatively desperate activities at the tree site where a fire had been started. No one has ever had a good explanation for why there were two focal sites down in the valley (the tree / fire site; the den site), about (as I recall ...) 75m apart. This is one of the reasons I believe the 'single crisis / single descent' assumptions may well be suspect.