Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident

by Donnie Eichar

Ten days into the trip, on the first of February, the hikers set up camp for the night on the eastern slope of Holatchahl mountain. That evening, an unknown incident sent the hikers fleeing from their tent into the darkness and piercing cold. Nearly three weeks later, after the group failed to return home, government authorities dispatched a search and rescue team. The team discovered the tent, but found no initial sign of the hikers. Their bodies were eventually found roughly a mile away from their campsite, in separate locations, half-dressed in subzero temperatures. Some were found facedown in the snow; others in fetal position; and some in a ravine clutching one another. Nearly all were without their shoes.

Not unlike the plight of Native Americans, who were forced from their lands during Manifest Destiny in the United States, the Mansi have been confined to smaller and smaller areas of land, mostly remote regions of the Ural Mountains. Today, they are represented in small villages such as Ushma, as well as settlements on the North Sosva and Ob Rivers. While census data has indicated a slow increase in the number of people claiming Mansi ethnicity (from 5,179 in 1926 to 12,269 in 2010), there are estimated to be fewer than a thousand who still speak the language, which suggests that it could be bound for extinction.

Later that day, they hit upon a cache of clothing. What is odd about the articles is that they are abandoned in the snow, not attached to a person. Stranger still, some of the clothing looks to have been cut or shredded.