Dyatlov

Dyatlov

by

Steven Stanley Bayes

www.Steven-Stanley-Bayes.com

Chapter 1 : Preface

The truth of the topic I would like to address will never be known. There have been speculations and there will continue to be. The trick is not to stop these but to find these with the highest possibility. In other words, I do not think I am able to find the truth. I think I am able to find the truth with a certain probability. I hope this to be high enough.

Chapter 2 : Notes by the Author

The author does not pretend to know nor to have found the truth. Due to restrains, the author asks a lot of questions, some of which are easily answerable. The author writes in gradual reviews. First, the author published some quick notes. Now, the author writes in a bit more understandable way because of the interest shown to the notes. In case of similar or higher interest to this writing, the author may update the writing with more careful examination of the events and suggest more possibilities. Thank you for reading.

The author has been using public domain materials published in the References section. All information used from other sources is a public domain.

Chapter 3 : Summary

On February 2, 1959, in The Soviet Union, in the middle of the Ural Mountain stretch, which is the border between Europe and Asia, 10 people, went for a ski climbing expedition through a summit and a valley, known to the local Inuit tribe called Mansi as The Valley of the Death . This name was given to the valley with a summit not because of what people would expect but because of the lack of animals, hunting game and vegetation. There is, however, a pine or cedar forest near the valley. The temperatures there are very low in the winter, typically - 30 degrees Centigrade, reaching - 40. I, personally, expect this place to see strong winds. The temperature during the night of February 2, 1959 was – 30 degrees Celsius.

There is a lot of evidence of what the expedition has achieved before February 2, 1959 because they had cameras as well as kept notes. The cameras, the films and the notes have been found, investigated and published.

Most likely, this picture shows some of the climbers with the local people in Vizhai. To ask around in Vizhai, mainly people who knew the climbers and their families would be advantageous.

Here are the names of the climbers :

Note : The names written in Latin alphabet may vary in spelling in different sources. The names written in Cyrillic alphabet may not vary in spelling. A different Cyrillic spelling of a name means a different name and a different person. Exception : Occasionally, in some places of a name, the Cyrillic e, E can be written as Cyrillic ë, Ë , i. e. e, E with two dots on top. This is to notify the reader e, E , when with two dots on top must be read as io , Io .

There is a town called Vizhai ( Вижай ) near the valley, probably 50Km away. This is where the expedition started from.

This map shows the expedition. Ten very intelligent and highly trained in climbing people, all of them students or recent graduates with the exception of Mr. Zolotorev, took their heavy equipment and backpacks to the train station in Svredlovsk ( now Yekaterinsburg ) to Serov then to Ivdel, then a bus to Vizhai, then a truck for approximately 25Km, then on walking ski through the snow of Ural.

The expedition looks to be very innocent and probably this is what the expedition was : 10 guys who have most likely met in or around the University, most likely in a climbing club decided to conquer a very difficult summit called Otorten in the Ural mountain. The students and recent graduates have been educated in Ural Polytechnical Institute ( Уральский Политехнический Институт, УПИ ), now Ural State Technical University.

One of the climbers, Mr. Yudin, started with the rest but returned shortly thereafter, reportedly, due to illness. However, there had been a lot of birthdays shortly before the expedition and there were two more and Vizhai was their last populated location. There may have been a lot of vodkas involved which would but cause much of a problem to the climbers except exhaustion while Mr. Yudin may have been sick or may have had a severe hangover and unable to continue. Real sickness can definitely not be excluded due to the severe climate and low temperatures as well travelling and staying not in the best, comfortable 7 star hotels around. The accommodation, the trains, busses and trucks can be examined as there as a lot of documents as well as investigation on the living and travelling conditions can be launched and information on the physical status of the group can be collected. High level of exhaustion may be found.

The Dyatlov team was made up of eight men and two women who, except for Alexander Zolotarev, were mostly students or graduates from the Ural Polytechnic Institute located in Ekaterinburg, Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia, and now renamed the Yeltsin Ural State Technical University. Georgyi Krivonischenko, Rustem Slobodin, and Nicolas Thibeaux-Brignolles were engineers. Igor Dyatlov and Zinaida Kolmogorova were students of the Radio Faculty, Lyudmila Dubinina and Yuri Yudin were studying Economics, Yuri Doroshenko was studying Power Economics and Alexander Kolevatov was a student of the Geo-Technical Faculty.

Alexander Zolotarev was a ski / tour instructor ( a professional travel guide ) and wanted to go together with Dyatlov’s team to add performance points to his degree and so achieve promotion to the rank of Master or Expert instructor. This was and still is the practice in Russia.

Zolotarev did not know the other team members but was recommended by friends of the team from the sports club. He was accepted into the team and according to the diaries he co-operated and worked well with all of them. It is worth noting that Sports Associations were common at this time as was the willingness for people, who shared an interest such as skiing, to cooperate with each other where possible.

This picture shows members of the group on their way to board the train. The train looks to be a state of the art for 1959. These trains had wagons where people can rent a sleeping compartment. This was probably not the case for financial reasons.

The goal of the expedition was to reach the summit of Otorten (Отортен) mountain, a mountain 10 kilometers north of the site of the incident or just to reach the mountain without climbing to the summit. This route, at that season, was estimated as Category III , the most difficult. All members were experienced in long ski tours and mountain expeditions.

An important question is to look into the evidence and try to find out what exactly the expedition goal was : just to find a pass or to conquer a summit or the two thereof. This may say whether they had had other thoughts before going to the expedition.

The group arrived by train at Ivdel ( Ивдель ), a city at the center of the northern province of Sverdlovsk Oblast on January 25, 1959. They then took a truck to Vizhai ( Вижай ) - the last inhabited settlement so far north. They started their march towards Otorten from Vizhai on January 27, 1959. The next day, one of the members, Mr. Yuri Yudin was forced to go back because of health problems. The group now consisted of nine people.

This picture shows Mr Dyatlov ( on ski ) and Ms. Dubinina and Mr Yudin hugging. They all look alike. This picture has probably been taken in Vizhai. Some say this picture was taken when Mr. Yudin decided not to continue.

The group started their expedition earlier than January 25, 1959 and spent a long while in trains and busses before reaching Vizhai. They then spent two nights in Ivdel and Vizhai. Important is to find where they were when. The conditions of Vizhai are expected to be much worse than the conditions in Ivdel.

Diaries and cameras found around their last camp made it possible to track the group's route up to the day preceding the incident. On January 31, 1959, the group arrived at the edge of a highland area and began to prepare for climbing. In a woody valley they built a storage for surplus food and equipment which would be used for the trip back. What equipment did they have? How much food? What was the content of their backpacks? These are important questions in order to find out what may have happened. Also, stashing food in the woods would not be the best thing to do in case of bears, wolfs and other animals which may discover the food and track the rest of the food.

The group must have made intermediate camps in order to sleep between January 27, 1959 and February 1, 1959. Thorough investigation of these camps as well as pictures and notes may bring a lot of knowledge on their general procedures of camping which may be used to find what happened on February 2, 1959.

Here are some pictures, possibly from the previous camps :

This picture shows something which looks like one of the girls was trying to give snow or something to an animal of some sort, maybe squirrel. Nice, quiet, pine forest.

This may be a picture from the same or another camp or group. They did prefer woods for camping. They were able to set fire. They did have pots, cups and they did have cans of food which they also used as cups.

On February 1, 1959, the hikers started to move through the pass. Some people think they planned to get over the pass and make camp for the next night on the opposite side, but because of worsening weather conditions, snowstorms and decreasing visibility, they lost their direction and deviated west, upward towards the top of Kholat Syakhl. When they realized their mistake, the group decided to stop and set up camp there on the slope of the mountain. This was their biggest problem. The best place around was the forest. They should have set up camp there. The