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As I’ve stated several times on this site, I write the History Blog mainly because I’m fascinated with interesting little stories that have escaped most people’s attention. At first, I wrote about tiny details of large and familiar events – like the Trent affair of the US Civil War. I then switched to smaller mysteries, like the Waldseemüller map – a map with an accurate depiction of South America, created by a man in Germany several years before Europeans had even seen the western side of the continent. Sometimes, however, “history’s mysteries” don’t quite live up to their hype. Take, for example, the case of the “Dyatlov Pass Incident”.

On January 25, 1959, a group of experienced hikers arrived at a hotel in Ivdel, a city in the northern Ural mountains of Russia. The eight men and two women were either students or alumni of Ural Polytechnical Institute, and were led by a man named Igor Dyatlov. The next morning, Dyatlov took the group by truck to Vizhai, the last inhabited place near their destination – a mountain called Otorten. At that time of year, the route the group planned to take to Otorten’s summit was considered “Category III” – the most difficult. Dyatlov and his group weren’t worried though: they all had plenty of experience with winter hiking. Although it would be difficult, the group was certain that everything would be OK.

Dyatlov had made plans to send a telegram to their hiking club at the university when the group returned to Vizhai, and it was expected that that would happen no later than February 12th. When the day came and went, folks weren’t overly worried. After all, it was a treacherous undertaking, and it wasn’t unreasonable to assume that the group might be delayed a day or two. However, when no one had heard from the group by February 20th, concerned relatives finally convinced the university to send out a volunteer search party. After a few days of fruitless searching, the police and army got involved, and within a day or two of that, Russian authorities ordered that planes and helicopters be brought in to assist the search.

On February 26th, searchers finally found the remains of the group’s campsite… and this is where things got weird. The group’s tent was found damaged beyond repair. Two of the group were found close to the camp, dressed only in their underwear. Three more bodies were found near the camp, but in a different location than the first two. These three bodies had more clothes on than the first two, but were still woefully underdressed for the -22F (-30C) weather. They also appeared to be wearing bits of clothes ripped from others that were already dead. The remaining four hikers (one of the men turned back early in the trip for health reasons) weren’t found until May 4th.

Continue reading “The Mystery That Wasn’t”