... What if it wasn't an external factor that made them flee the tent? Maybe a serious fight broke out, due to the harsh conditions and the earlier mistake that left them in that shitty situation, where they couldn't use the stove for warmth? ...
As I've mentioned before (check earlier posts in this thread) there are grounds for arguing group bonhomie might have been wearing thin.
The party's progress had slowed in the prior couple of days because warmer conditions generated slush on the frozen river's surface, they could no longer efficiently ski upstream, and they were forced to continue on foot using the snow-covered path alongside the riverbank in a much more laborious fashion.
The preceding day they'd arrived below the pass early enough to attempt to climb it, but had to turn back owing to strong "warm" winds. The following (last known) day they'd adjusted the trip plan and spent most of the day building a cache before ascending the pass. By the time they surmounted the pass the weather had deteriorated and they elected to not descend into the valley beyond as originally planned (according to one of Zina's journal entries*). Instead, they elected to pitch camp atop the pass.
*NOTE: When Zina wrote of the plan to cross the pass the intent was to establish their cache in the valley beyond. The fact they established the cache in the valley they were already in before ascending the pass suggests there'd been another change of plan sometime after Zina's written entry. This change of cache location means it remains unclear whether they'd also changed their plan to camping atop the pass versus continuing to the valley beyond.
There's a photo of their ascent to the pass showing them paused, with T-B and Dyatlov engaged in conversation. It looks like a serious conversation. I'm not sure whether this photo was taken the preceding day (when they turned back from the first pass attempt) or the final known day.
I suspect Zolo and T-B - the older and quite experienced "outsiders" relative to the others - were becoming concerned about the progress and prospects of the expedition. These two guys would end up as the best-clothed / shod corpses. I don't think that was a random coincidence.
Over the years I've mulled over this incident I've come to increasingly believe there was at least some measure of growing dissension in the group, and it didn't have anything to do with the mixed gender composition of the party. I think Zolo and T-B had reached an actionable level of concern by the time the party had hastily encamped atop the pass. Under this interpretation there was discord, and this discord influenced the course of events that resulted in all their deaths.
I have no firm opinion on whether the discord erupted into argument or even fighting within the tent. I do have a long-simmering suspicion that Zolo and T-B departed the tent separately from the others, and they did so earlier than their other / ill-clothed fellow trekkers.
Beyond these points it becomes impossible to clearly envision the course of events without generating a lot of possible storylines. The two questions I'd most like to have answered are:
- Did the party abandon the tent site all at once during that first night atop the pass (as has long been assumed), and if not - who left when?
... and given the answer to that ...
- Who discarded the flashlight several hundred meters downslope from the tent?