Dyatlov Pass Incident (1959)

[CuriousIdent]

1- The lucky 10th member of the group Yuri Yudin later said there were items at the abandoned site that he couldn't identify as belonging to the Dyatlov's. His own theory is that the military were at the tent and were somehow responsible for the deaths.

But were those item not:

1) A pair of glasses - which could very easily have been reading glasses that he hadn't seen anybody in the group use, before the point he left the group?

2) A piece of 'military looking' cloth - Which could have been anything really. And again, having left the group early on he would not have any way of knowing with certainty all of the other clothing the group had with them. And thirdly:

2- A ski pole was found at the site that didn't belong to the Dyatlov's, and it had cut marks on it as if it'd been used as a weapon

Which is a really vague descriptor. You've seen the photographs. The group had many pairs of skis and poles - wedged into the snow while they were seated you can see that. We have also seen the poles used to support ropes from the tent if I recall rightly.

Firstly, again, the likelihood of his knowing in intimate detail what each ski or pole for each person looked like - in detail - is slim.

Secondly, "it had cut marks on it as if it'd been used as a weapon" - How? Like an in impromptu shiv? Like they's sword-fought with them? I would love to see a photo of this, because I find it very hard to see how that conclusion was made. Any marks, cuts or breaks, could easily have occurred if the pole was being used to support a tent rope at the point the tent was exited hastily, or as the elements weight against over the next 3 weeks. Poles snap and get scratched. It's far from definitive proof of their being used as a weapon.

and autopsies revealed that several of the group had facial wounds caked with blood, and bruises to their fists as well as broken bones and internal injuries all pointing to a possible fight.

The thing is those same kind of injuries could also be sustained falling down a ravine. Or losing your footing during a landslide.

Snow is not soft. Especially in icy conditions. Falling against it can be a really hard impact. Enough to break a bone if you slip downhill. To crush some internal organs from a hard impact. Anybody who has ever slipped through snow skin first will know that it can break and cut the skin. If a member of the party tried to pound the snow with their fists, hoping to get traction as they slid, it *would* bruise their hands.

The only way you would conclusively prove a fight had occurred would be the evidence of another person's blood, skin or nail in a wound on the body.

3- Further snowfalls, winds and blizzards would have obliterated or messed up many footprints and tracks so we can't be sure which prints and tracks belonged to who.

Not 100%, no. But the main line of tracks for the group we're still visible. It's a long way for a lone individual to trek, in poor weather conditions, to commit a murder of multiple individuals whilst removing or avoiding leaving any traceable evidence that they were ever there. And if it was a group of individual there would definitely be more evidence of their tracks both to the campsite and AT the campsite.

Snow doesn't remove ALL traces.

4- McCloskey says a stolen wallet was involved, but others say it was only a stolen bottle of booze, so who shall we believe?

I believe the Russian account. In translation it absolutely does not mention a wallet. It does mention a bottle. I am really uncertain where the wallet rumour came from. This thread is the only place where I have heard any reference to it.

I'm still trying to get in touch with McCloskey to find out where he got certain bits of information, and if he replies I'll post his comments in this sensational thread..

Sure. Any info is useful.

 

[EnolaGaia]

... The only way you would conclusively prove a fight had occurred would be the evidence of another person's blood, skin or nail in a wound on the body. ...

Perhaps more to the point in the context of this case ...

The only way one could demonstrate scraped knuckles (etc.) necessarily indicated a fight with someone else would be to find soft tissue impact injuries on another known party that were consistent with being punched.

The medical examiner specifically checked for such telling soft tissue injuries on all the bodies, found none, and duly documented this in the formal reports back in 1959.

 

[Waymarker]

..It's a long way for a lone individual to trek, in poor weather conditions, to commit a murder of multiple individuals whilst removing or avoiding leaving any traceable evidence that they were ever there. And if it was a group of individual there would definitely be more evidence of their tracks both to the campsite and AT the campsite..

I've always maintained the possible murders were committed not by a 'lone individual' but possibly by another hiking group who the Dyatlov's had some kind of confrontation with at Serov railway station, for example by allegedly pinching a wallet and/or other property from one of the group, who then followed in the tracks of the Dyatlovs to get it back.
Also a suggestion of mine that I've not previously heard anywhere is that the slashes on the tent might not have been made by the Dyatlovs, but by others trying to get in, or at least slashing away to force the Dyatlovs to come out, and all hell let loose as both groups went ballistic.
Autopsies revealed severe injuries in several of the Dyatlov group, including bruised hands as if there'd been a fist fight-
From McCloskeys book MOTD-p 71-76:-
"George Krivonischenko- Bruises on hands.
Igor Dyatlov..brown/red bruises in the area of the Metacarpophalangeal joints of the right hand. A common injury in fights using fists.
Yuri Doroshenko- the fingers of both hands had torn skin.
Rustem Slobodin- bruises..in both hands."
Needless to say the other group must have been better armed with clubs of some sort and turned up at the tent meaning business.

 

[Waymarker]

..The only way one could demonstrate scraped knuckles (etc.) necessarily indicated a fight with someone else would be to find soft tissue impact injuries on another known party that were consistent with being punched.
The medical examiner specifically checked for such telling soft tissue injuries on all the bodies, found none, and duly documented this in the formal reports back in 1959.

Not sure I follow you mate, the autopsy reports indicate the Dyatlov's were busted up pretty bad (broken bones, lacerations bloody faces etc) and the knuckles of some were bruised which suggests they'd used their fists to dish it out in return.

 

[EnolaGaia]

... Also a suggestion of mine that I've not previously heard anywhere is that the slashes on the tent might not have been made by the Dyatlovs, but by others trying to get in, or at least slashing away to force the Dyatlovs to come out ...

Sorry, but this idea of the slashes / cuts / tears having been done from outside isn't new. It was an explicit element in some of the various intruder / attacker based theories as far back as I can remember.

References to damages-from-outside faded as writers and commentators switched to emphasizing the notion the tent fabric was severed from within - the narrative version that still amplified an implication of mysterious circumstances, yet didn't rely on the presence of parties for whom no evidence had been found.

 

[Waymarker]

Sorry, but this idea of the slashes / cuts / tears having been done from outside isn't new. It was an explicit element in some of the various intruder / attacker based theories as far back as I can remember.
References to damages-from-outside faded as writers and commentators switched to emphasizing the notion the tent fabric was severed from within - the narrative version that still amplified an implication of mysterious circumstances, yet didn't rely on the presence of parties for whom no evidence had been found.

That's interesting, it seems I wasn't the first to air the "slashed from outside" theory, (great minds think alike and all that)..
Here's the tent after the searchers re-erected it for examination back at base, it's impossible to tell if somebody slashed in or out. If it was slashed from outside, I wouldn't put it past the commie authorities to suppress that fact in case it made Mother Russia look bad to the world by having killers at large in the Urals-

 

[Misfitdoll]

I'm coming to accept the failing tent/snow chunk theory, and the sequence of events is beginning to make sense for me, but I would like to discuss why these seasoned hikers made no attempt to grab their boots before exiting the tent? They had to have known that being in the snow in sock-feet was potentially lethal.

 

[EnolaGaia]

I'm coming to accept the failing tent/snow chunk theory, and the sequence of events is beginning to make sense for me, but I would like to discuss why these seasoned hikers made no attempt to grab their boots before exiting the tent? They had to have known that being in the snow in sock-feet was potentially lethal.

The footwear situation is more complicated than most simplified accounts relate ...

Two of the folks (Thibeaux-Brignolle and Zolotarev) were each wearing a pair of 'reasonable' footwear when found. T-B was wearing leather boots. Zolotarev was wearing valenki (woolen felt boots that could either be worn inside larger outer boots or used as outermost footwear in camp or while skiing if wetness wasn't a problem).

NOTE: The fact that these two guys - the oldest two in the party - were fully clothed and shod is often taken to mean they had exited the tent (perhaps to urinate) prior to whatever happened to impel an evacuation. Personally, I'm not absolutely convinced this is how things definitely played out.

One person (Slobodin) was found wearing a single valenki, and his other one was found at the tent.

Two people didn't have outer shoes / boots to put on. Two pairs of shoes / boots had been left behind in the 'labaz' (cache) they'd established in the Auspiy valley (from which they'd come). One pair - insulated boots - were identified as being Dyatlov's. I'm not sure who owned the other pair, described as 'shoes'. They may well have been Krivonischenko's, because he was known to prefer wearing valenki when strapped onto his skis.

As far as I know, Dyatlov and one other person had nothing heavier than valenki to put on, and neither managed to accomplish that much.

The rest of the party were found wearing multiple pairs of socks, in at least one case (Dubinina) supplemented with a swatch of fabric wrapped around one foot. Some of the extra (and in some instances mismatched) socks were presumed to have been stripped from the two bodies at The Cedar.

The only bodies found barefoot were one or both of the stripped bodies at The Cedar.

In summary, the footwear tally was as follows:

2 folks fully shod (boots or valenki)
1 person half-shod (single valenki)
6 people unshod - i.e., in socks alone (one or more per leg)

As to why most of them left the tent without donning their outer footwear ...

The most common interpretation is that they left the tent in such haste there wasn't time to put on their outer footwear.

Another reasonable interpretation is that they couldn't get to their outer footwear (and / or to their outermost coats) at the point they evacuated the tent (e.g., because the tent was buried / collapsed).

Another possibility is that they were addled, in shock, or otherwise psychologically destabilized to the point they simply didn't prioritize getting fully dressed.

 

[Misfitdoll]

Yes, I'm inclined to believe they weren't able to access their gear due to the way the tent had collapsed, which created a barrier.

 

[Waymarker]

I'm coming to accept the failing tent/snow chunk theory, and the sequence of events is beginning to make sense for me, but I would like to discuss why these seasoned hikers made no attempt to grab their boots before exiting the tent? They had to have known that being in the snow in sock-feet was potentially lethal.

Yes, that's one of the several "mysteries within a mystery" surrounding the incident..
I used to think it was a "snow-slip" on the shallow slope that swamped the tent, but a snow slip doesn't account for the terrible injuries most of them suffered.
For me, one of the most telling pieces of evidence for my "Murder Theory" is that several of them had bruised knuckles as if they'd been in a fist fight-
From McCloskeys book 'Mountain of the Dead' -pp 71-76:-

Igor Dyatlov..brown/red bruises in the area of the Metacarpophalangeal joints of the right hand. A common injury in fights using fists.
George Krivonischenko- Bruises on hands.
Yuri Doroshenko- the fingers of both hands had torn skin.
Rustem Slobodin- bruises..in both hands."

And for the record here's a list of all the injuries discovered at the autopsies in McCloskeys book-

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[Krepostnoi]

Yes, that's one of the several "mysteries within a mystery" surrounding the incident..
I used to think it was a "snow-slip" on the shallow slope, but a snow slip doesn't account for the terrible injuries most of them suffered.
For me, one of the most telling pieces of evidence for my "Murder Theory" is that several of them had bruised knuckles as if they'd been in a fist fight-
From McCloskeys book 'Mountain of the Dead' -pp 71-76:-

Igor Dyatlov..brown/red bruises in the area of the Metacarpophalangeal joints of the right hand. A common injury in fights using fists.
George Krivonischenko- Bruises on hands.
Yuri Doroshenko- the fingers of both hands had torn skin.
Rustem Slobodin- bruises..in both hands."

And for the record here's a list of all the injuries discovered at the autopsies in McCloskeys book-

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The trouble is we now know that McCloskey is not a reliable secondary source. If he got the wallet detail wrong - which he definitely did - what else did he get wrong?

 

[Waymarker]

..I'm inclined to believe they weren't able to access their gear due to the way the tent had collapsed, which created a barrier.

They therefore had two choices,
1- Run down to the trees partially-clothed in subzero conditions in the dead of night.
2- Try their utmost to get back into the tent through the rips.

Inexplicably they chose option 2, even though they must have known they'd almost certainly be running to their deaths.
Again it brings me back to my Murder Theory, as they knew they'd be murdered for certain if they didn't get away from their attackers, so at least taking refuge in the trees offered the slim chance that they could build a fire with tree branches and hide there til the attackers had gone away.
In fact searchers found the remains of a fire, and several bodies were found as if they'd been heading back up to the tent later (2/3/4 below) it appears Zina got furthest back towards the tent, full credit to her-

 

[Krepostnoi]

I've always maintained the possible murders were committed not by a 'lone individual' but possibly by another hiking group who the Dyatlov's had some kind of confrontation with at Serov railway station, for example by allegedly pinching a wallet and/or other property from one of the group, who then followed in the tracks of the Dyatlovs to get it back.

The group diary does mention the Blinov group, who were also at Serov station - indeed, the two groups had been travelling together, so there must have been at least a minimal level of mutual tolerance - which seems to suggest that they would have commented on the presence of like-minded individuals and/or groups. But no other such group is mentioned. It's possible that there may have been a dispute between these two groups, although the entry for January 25 says that they bade each other fond farewells at Vizhai, so that sounds unlikely. The group diary does make ironic mention of the warm welcome they received at Serov station, but goes on to mention that they weren't allowed to sing or to enter the waiting room. There is no such gloss for the parting from the Blinov group, so I am inclined to take that at face value rather than as being meant ironically.

The only mention I have found so far of any negative interaction is that with the alcoholic. Dubinina also mentions it in her diary, and she also states explicitly that the object of contention was a bottle of vodka:

Затем вдруг пристал к ребятам один молодой алкоголик, кот. обвинял их в краже бутылки водки.

That said, she doesn't mention any police involvement. But there is not even any indirect evidence to support a dispute arising with any other hiking group in her diary, the group diary, or any of the other diaries that I have so far had chance to read.

ETA a link to the Russian language text which purports to be from Dubinina's diary of the ill-fated expedition.

 

[Waymarker]

The trouble is we now know that McCloskey is not a reliable secondary source. If he got the wallet detail wrong - which he definitely did - what else did he get wrong?

But other websites also claim it was a wallet, are they all wrong too?
For example here's a translation from one of the Dyatlov's diaries at another website-
"January 24
(7am) We arrived in Serov (town)...We spent 2 hours lecturing and kids did not want to let us go. They sang songs to each other. At the station, we saw the whole school.
In the end, when we were leaving, the kids yelled and cried, asking Zina to remain with them. They promised to listen to her and study well.
On a train station, some young alcoholic accused us of stealing his wallet from a pocket. For the second time the police are on the scene.."
http://ermakvagus.com/Europe/Russia/Cholat-%20Syachil/dyatlov_group_diary.html

PS- for newcomers to this thread, I'm saying the wallet theft fits in with my 'Murder Theory', namely that the "young alcoholic" was perhaps a member of another hiking group at the station, so he and his mates possibly tracked the Dyatlovs to get his wallet back, by violence if necessary.
Furthermore, as the police were called at the station, it's possible that the "young alcoholic's" name is still on file in old Serov police records. The incident happened 59 years ago, so as he was a young man at the time he might still be alive now, aged in his 70's or 80's and it'd be interesting to hear what he's got to say..

 

[Krepostnoi]

But other websites also claim it was a wallet, are they all wrong too?

If the two Russian-language extracts that I have cited in posts #638 and #671 are genuine, then yes: any website which claims a wallet was involved is wrong.

 

[Waymarker]

..Another possibility is that they were addled, in shock, or otherwise psychologically destabilized to the point they simply didn't prioritize getting fully dressed.

Yes, in fact I also entertain the possibility that it might have been a bear or bears trying to claw their way into the tent, and if that's true no wonder they fled in panic.
But wildlife experts say that any bears in the area would have been fast asleep in hibernation for the winter, so I'm prepared to take their word for it, unless the bears happened to be early risers feeling hungry..

 

[Waymarker]

If the two Russian-language extracts that I have cited in posts #638 and #671 are genuine, then yes: any website which claims a wallet was involved is wrong.

Here's the extract from Dubinina's diary that you posted-
Затем вдруг пристал к ребятам один молодой алкоголик, кот. обвинял их в краже бутылки водки.

And here's how google translator translates it-
Then suddenly one young alcoholic, a cat, came to the boys. accused them of stealing a bottle of vodka.

If there was a drunk cat (KOT) involved, the mystery certainly deepens..

BUT, even if it was a bottle of vodka and not a wallet, that might STILL have been motive enough for the "alcoholic" and his pals (furious with anger) to track down the Dyatlov's to get it back. Perhaps they intended to just slash the tent for revenge, but things escalated and world war 3 broke out..

 

[Mythopoeika]

Here's the extract from Dubinina's diary that you posted-
Затем вдруг пристал к ребятам один молодой алкоголик, кот. обвинял их в краже бутылки водки.

And here's how google translator translates it-
Then suddenly one young alcoholic, a cat, came to the boys. accused them of stealing a bottle of vodka.

Was there a drunk cat (KOT) involved?

BUT, even if it was a bottle of vodka and not a wallet, that might STILL have been motive enough for the "alcoholic" and his pals (furious with anger) to track down the Dyatlov's to get it back. Perhaps they intended to just slash the tent for revenge, but things escalated and world war 3 broke out..

'Cat' in this context may have been use of the 'hip' talk of the time (dating from the 50s).
https://fiftiesweb.com/fashion/slang-c/

 

[Krepostnoi]

Here's the extract from Dubinina's diary that you posted-
Затем вдруг пристал к ребятам один молодой алкоголик, кот. обвинял их в краже бутылки водки.

And here's how google translator translates it-
Then suddenly one young alcoholic, a cat, came to the boys. accused them of stealing a bottle of vodka.

If there was a drunk cat (KOT) involved, the mystery certainly deepens..

BUT, even if it was a bottle of vodka and not a wallet, that might STILL have been motive enough for the "alcoholic" and his pals (furious with anger) to track down the Dyatlov's to get it back. Perhaps they intended to just slash the tent for revenge, but things escalated and world war 3 broke out..

That's yet another example of why you need a human translator, not Google Translate. Yes, кот means "cat", specifically "tom-cat", but кот. with the full stop after it is an abbreviation for который, which is a male-gendered relative pronoun meaning "who"*. So the sentence reads something like "Then, all of a sudden, a young alcoholic started hassling the lads, accusing** them of stealing a bottle of vodka."

And you still haven't addressed either my or @maximus otter's objections to the likelihood of an alcoholic getting his act together sufficiently to persuade his mates to embark on - and stick to - an arduous 8-9 day expedition to exact revenge over a half-litre bottle of vodka that most likely wasn't even his in the first place.

* Or "which", depending on whether the referent is animate or not (Russian is a gendered language, so even inanimate objects are understood to be one of either masculine, feminine or neuter genders, and word endings change accordingly - see e.g. кот vs кошка).

** Translating the source text literally would give us "who accused", but given the way English word order works, it's not then straightforward to show that the subject of the verb is the alcoholic as opposed to the lads (ie the male members of the Dyatlov party).

 

[Mythopoeika]

And you still haven't addressed either my or @maximus otter's objections to the likelihood of an alcoholic getting his act together sufficiently to persuade his mates to embark - and stick to - an arduous 8-9 day expedition to exact revenge over a half-litre bottle of vodka that most likely wasn't even his in the first place.

Yeah, that is very unlikely. Even a psycho would probably give up.

 

[Waymarker]

..And you still haven't addressed either my or @maximus otter's objections to the likelihood of an alcoholic getting his act together sufficiently to persuade his mates to embark on - and stick to - an arduous 8-9 day expedition to exact revenge over a half-litre bottle of vodka..

As I said earlier, we don't know for sure whether he was an alcoholic because we simply don't know all the details.
The Dyatlov's were in Serov for 11 hours waiting for their train connection and some had gone off to give a talk to schoolkids, so they might have been in separate groups mooching all over town to kill time.
Later when they all came together at the station and heard there'd been some trouble with somebody involving the police, Ludmila Dubinina might have asked the boys "What happened" and was told something like "Oh nothing much, some drunk said we pinched his vodka, let's forget it", so she wrote down "vodka" in her diary.
In fact they might have pinched his wallet but they weren't going to admit it to her, so they said he was drunk just to discredit him.
He might have been sober for all we know, and quite capable of tracking them down..

AND HEY- the Serov police were mean mofos, they'd already told off one of the Dyatlovs for singing at the station (below) so no way hozay could I imagine them letting a drunk into the station without arresting him and busting his ass.
So like I said he might not have been a drunk at all-
p 18 MOTD- "George Krivochenko...started singing, which was enough for the policeman to grab him and haul him away.
The police told the group that Section 3 (of local railway regulations) forbade all activity that would 'disturb the peace of passengers'."

 

[Ringo]

The broken tree branches were alwys a fascinating part or me. I wonder if the weather conditions of the slope could account for it. A severe, howling gale but only to a certain height. Enough to force the group to flee for cover and to damage the lower few metres of branches. Was there anymention of damage branches on surrounding trees?

 

[EnolaGaia]

...
Затем вдруг пристал к ребятам один молодой алкоголик, кот. обвинял их в краже бутылки водки.
If there was a drunk cat (KOT) involved, the mystery certainly deepens..

'Cat' in this context may have been use of the 'hip' talk of the time (dating from the 50s). ...

I suspect the 'Kot.' is a contraction or abbreviation for 'ko-to' / 'koto' ('who'), yielding "... young alcoholic guy, who accused ..."

 

[Waymarker]

The broken tree branches were alwys a fascinating part or me. I wonder if the weather conditions of the slope could account for it. A severe, howling gale but only to a certain height. Enough to force the group to flee for cover and to damage the lower few metres of branches. Was there any mention of damage branches on surrounding trees?

A freak gale is a possibility but the consensus of the searchers was that some of the Dyatlovs had broken off the lower branches of the cedar to get a fire going (I don't know if any other trees were damaged)

 

[Roland Deschain]

Not sure if this has been posted anywhere previously but a story here about the recent exhumation and DNA testing of Zolotarev

https://m.kp.ru/daily/26830/3870457/

I can't figure how to post the translated text, anyway take with a pinch of salt.

 

[EnolaGaia]

The broken tree branches were alwys a fascinating part or me. I wonder if the weather conditions of the slope could account for it. A severe, howling gale but only to a certain height. Enough to force the group to flee for cover and to damage the lower few metres of branches. Was there anymention of damage branches on surrounding trees?

There's little doubt there were fierce winds when the unexpected Arctic blast hit the area and the temperatures plummeted.

There's also little doubt the bare mountain slope was subject to significant winds between the fatal night and the arrival of searchers, because a lot of the open ground from the tent site down to the tree line was scoured down to the level of the Dyatlov party's footprints (or even lower).

According to one account I read (from one of the searchers) the search party originally descended to the forest looking for a place where they (themselves) could camp now that they'd found the tent site. This is how they found The Cedar site.

This witness claimed the wind was a problem even down among the trees in the valley and that it was making a loud noise blowing through the trees.

Generally, though, the searchers made no mention of unusual tree or limb damage / 'down-age' in the valley. Neither did they mention widespread damage or broken trees / branches lying on the ground.

A number of branches were found scattered around The Cedar site. Here's a photo of the site after the two bodies had been removed. The large 'bone-shaped' thing lying on the ground at center-left is the charred log.

​

 

[Waymarker]

Not sure if this has been posted anywhere previously but a story here about the recent exhumation and DNA testing of Zolotarev
https://m.kp.ru/daily/26830/3870457/
I can't figure how to post the translated text, anyway take with a pinch of salt.

Thanks, I just fed the article into google translate paragraph by paragraph and it airs a new conspiracy theory, namely-whoever is buried in Dyatlov group member Semyon Zolotarev's grave is not him at all but an unknown stranger!
That conclusion is drawn after DNA samples were taken from the body in the grave and compared to DNA from his surviving niece and nephew and found not to entirely match.
But the DNA results are doubted by "famous forensic expert Eduard Tumanov" who says in the article-
"This is an examination not of direct kinship, so there are questions to it," said Tumanov. "I do not want to question the professionalism of these geneticists, but private laboratories, as far as I know, do not have enough experience to carry out examinations of this degree of complexity"
The article also contains plugs for several books on the mystery which it suggests we buy.

However there's one intriguing bit in the article that's worth mentioning and translates as follows-
"On his last trip, Semyon said to his comrades such a mysterious phrase: "The whole world will speak of this campaign." And these words of his were prophetic"

 

[Waymarker]

There's little doubt there were fierce winds when the unexpected Arctic blast hit the area and the temperatures plummeted..
There's also little doubt the bare mountain slope was subject to significant winds between the fatal night and the arrival of searchers, because a lot of the open ground from the tent site down to the tree line was scoured down to the level of the Dyatlov party's footprints (or even lower).

It may well be that the Dyatlov's were too gung-ho in deciding to camp in the open up the slope and found out they'd bitten off more than they could chew when a sudden blizzard/gale/freak low temperatures hit them, and as hypothermia began gripping them they might have slashed their way out obsessed with the idea of making a big roaring fire down in the trees to save their lives.
However, nobody can understand why they rushed down only partially clothed, and how they got their severe injuries.
Also, here's them digging a place for their tent on that fatal night, so the tent wouldn't be completely exposed to a howling gale; it'd be relatively well-shielded at the bottom of that hole.
As a camper myself I'd have stayed put.

 

[EnolaGaia]

why that (cedar) tree?
What was the reason for lighting a fire under that cedar tree - and not somewhere else?

I understand the cedar was at the limit of the forest in the valley very exposed to the wind and elements…
why not choose another spot more protected and sheltered deeper in the forest? ...

I’m asking because the reason could have that THAT cedar tree – because of its prominent location and height - was the obvious and optimal beacon / observation point to signal / be seen and/or see the campsite (although only from the higher branches) and/or the path down from it into the valley…although in a moonless dark night?!?…if it was night time…

NOTE: My initial response (March 2014) is in post #410. This is a follow-on to that response ...

There's another possible interpretation for why the group seemed to have focused on getting to The Cedar. I've never mentioned this interpretation before, because I considered it too 'far out'.

This interpretation requires relaxing or changing a couple of elements in the 'standard interpretation' of events:

- (Possibly) that the group descended at night; and
- that the group were aware of their location and orientation when abandoning the tent.

This interpretation relies on facts that were similar between the 'labaz' (cache) left in the Auspiy valley on February 1 and the down-slope vista from the tent site.

The common element at both locations is a cedar tree which is notably larger and more prominent than the ones surrounding it. Both locations featured such a relatively prominent cedar tree within a forested setting. In the case of the cache, storing the supplies near a prominent landmark would aid in re-locating it from a distance later. They'd also left a single ski erected in the snow to mark the cache.

What if the party was sufficiently disoriented that they descended into the Lozva valley and aimed for a prominent cedar tree (circa 1.5 km down-slope) because they mistook it for the cache located circa 2.5 km down-slope in more or less the opposite direction?

Their ascent to the pass on February 1 had been in heavy weather with limited visibility. However, Dyatlov had plotted out the planned route, carried maps, and conferred with others about the plan during the trek, so I have a hard time believing these seasoned trekkers would be unanimously mis-oriented by circa 180 degrees (northward versus southward).

Additionally, I'm not sure what it may have been that would have made it attractive to abandon the tent site (and all their primary equipment) and retreat to the cache. The two pairs of outer footwear (Dyatlov's and someone else's) left at the cache are the only things that strike me as significant. They'd left a lot of food at the cache, but they had food with them up on the pass.

Still ... If one shifts the timeframe later (e.g., to daytime on the 2nd) it's conceivable they were delusional enough to think they could see the cache site down-slope from the tent once there was daylight and / or visibility improved.

 

[Waymarker]

On a spooky note, I wouldn't like to meet that (circled) on a dark night, inside or outside a tent, whoever or whatever it is.
The pic is from a website (link below) and includes some of the Dyatlovs, date and location unknown-

http://therealevidenceoftheparanormal.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-dyatlov-pass-accident-attack.html