Our world is full of the unexplained. It fills our histories and feeds our curiosity, and if there’s one thing humans have always strived for, it’s answers. But what happens when an answer can’t be found? Well, we just have to create our own. Folktales are born from mystery and we use them to teach our children, hold on to our heritage and to explain the unexplainable.

But after so many years of stories, sometimes modern technology gives us more than we ever had access to. In 1959, a shocking incident stunned Russia, opening the way for folklore to take hold. But now, 62 years later, we think we have the answer. Let me tell you the tale of The Dyatlov Pass.

In January 1959 a group of 10 students began on a cross skiing trip to Mount Ortorten, which is part of the Ural Mountains in Western Russia and is the mountain range which divides Europe and Asia. The leader of this party was 23-year-old Igor Dyatlov, who told his mother, concerned about him leaving for the trip “Just one last time mama, just one last time.”

Igor Dyatlov began planning his expedition in 1958, he was studying at the prestigious Russian University Ural Polytechnic Institute, also known as U.P.I. He submitted his adventurous proposal to the U.P.I sports club and was quickly granted permission to take his party on the cross-country venture.

On the 23rd of January 1959, Dyatlov’s group would begin their ambitious journey to ski two hundred miles, on a route that no Russian, as far as anyone knew, had taken before.

The expedition was made up of eight men and two women. Igor was a fifth-year engineering student and experienced hiker and athlete. He put together a team he was knew would be up to the mammoth task. They consisted of fellow radio engineering student, 22-year-old Zinaida Kolmogorova.

Yuri Krivonischenko, Rustem Slobodin and Nicolay Thibeaux-Brignolle who were all 23 years of age and engineering students.

Yuri Doreshenko, 21, Alexander Kolevatov 24 , Yuri Yudin 22, and then finally the youngest of the group, Lyudmila Dubinina aged 20 completed the initial party. All highly intelligent and athletic people, they were seen as a new generation of soviet promise and optimism for the future.

A few days before the beginning of their trip, the U.P.I unexpectedly added a tenth member to the party. Semyon Zolotaryov was a 37-year-old World War Two veteran and mostly unknown to the rest of the group. With an old-fashioned moustache, tattoos and steel crowned teeth he stood out from his fellow expeditioners but was believed to be an asset to the group.

The party left Sverdlovsk by train with several of them hiding under seats to avoid buying tickets. The communal journals they left behind told us they were in high spirits—playing instruments, singing and laughing as they travelled across the country. Yuri Krivonischenko had brought his mandolin and at one point was briefly detained by the police for his musical disruption. At least five of the skiers had cameras, and since retrieved pictures show a group of people full of life and excitement and about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime.

On the 25th January they stopped briefly at a settlement called Vizhay, this is where Igor and Zinaida sent their final letters home. The start of Zinaida’s letter read; “We are going camping, the ten of us and it’s a great bunch of people. I have all the warm clothes I need, so don’t worry about me.”

They spent the night there before hitching a ride with a truck to a logging base called the 41st settlement. From there the group hired a horse-drawn sled to carry their supplies and skied for a further 15 miles to an abandoned mining settlement. But the journey was becoming long and arduous, there was a constant battle against the terrain and fatigue and on the 28th January it became too much for one member of the party.

Zinaida wrote in her diary, “Yuri Yudin is leaving us today. His sciatic nerves have flared up again and he has decided to go home. Such a pity.”

And with that the remaining nine battled on. The plan was to end in a village called Vizhai on the 12th February and send a telegraph to the U.P.I sports club, informing them of their safe arrival.

As the group continued their trek into the mountains they were leaving behind civilisation. Isolated in the enormity of the mountains and forests. Well, isolated from people, the forests there are filled with reindeer, wolverines and lynx. Guides will inform you that although the skies can be beautiful and blue, the weather is unpredictable and can change at any moment.

On the night of February 1st, the group reached the Eastern slope of Kholat Saykhl, whose name, in the language of the Indigenous Mansi people, can be interpreted as the “Dead Mountain”.

Now this is where things begin to become confusing. Up until this point there had been a very clear path and rational decisions made. Igor Dyatlov was an experienced hiker and had been doing an excellent job in leading the group, but that night they made a decision, which unbeknownst to the party, would be their downfall.

Instead of making camp on the outskirts of the forest, which would have been a more sheltered campsite. The hikers ascended almost a mile further up the slope and stopped in an exposed area. Theories for this decision sit mainly in that the group had worked hard to gain the height and were reluctant to lose this by going back on themselves.

To counter the exposed nature of the campsite they dug into the snow, allowing their tent to sit below snow level and offering them some shelter from the harsh winds which whipped across the surface of the mountain.

They put up their tent and settled in for the night.

The 12th of February came and went, and no telegraph arrived at the sports club. It wasn’t uncommon for groups to be slowed on such enormous expeditions and initially there was no alarm at the lack of communication. Reports of heavy snowfall across the mountain range had been coming in and would account for the expedition’s slow going.

But as days passed, family members began to panic. Frantic calls were made to the university by concerned parents, and on the 20th February official search parties were sent out into the wilderness.

Almost a month after the group had pitched their tent the search party stumbled across it. They saw it from a distance, a tent pole sticking out of the snow on the slope.

The rescuers made their way up towards it, not knowing what to expect. Pulling back the entrance their confusion grew. Inside the tent everything was tidy, clothes and boots placed neatly, journals, cameras and wood for the stove all laid out. There was even a plate of food ready to be eaten. But in stark contrast to this, the side of the tent had been slashed open by a knife, as if the people inside had been desperately trying to escape.

The search party made their way back outside, looking for any sign of the hikers who had apparently fled the safety of the camp. It was then that they spotted the footprints. Several sets of them walking towards the treeline. On many of the footprints you could distinctly make out the outline of toes. Most of the group had only been wearing socks, some had even gone out with bare feet.

They followed the footprints down the slope until they disappeared near the tree line. Baffled, the search party set up camp for the night. One searcher recalled that they drank from a flask they had found at the abandoned tent. He raised the drink and went to toast the lost group’s safety when a guide turned to him and said, “Best not drink to their health, but to their eternal peace.”

The following morning on the 27th February, the first bodies were discovered. Yuri Doroshenko and the mandolin player Yuri Krivonischenko were found at the trunk of a large cedar tree. Both men were dressed only in their underwear and Krivonischenko had bitten off part of his own knuckle. Perplexed by this, the search continued and later that day, the grisly discoveries continued. Igor Dyatlov and Zinaida Kolmogorova were found further up the slope in the direction of the tent, it looked as though they had been attempting to make their way back to their campsite. All four bodies were sent to be autopsied and were found to have sustained bruises, cuts and abrasions. Some parts of Doroshenko and Krivonishschenko had even been quite badly burnt and Kolmogorova was found to have a very large red bruise which ran up the side of her torso, almost as if she had been hit with a baton.

A couple of days later, the fifth body was found. It was Rustem Slobodin, he also seemed to have been making his way back to the camp, his autopsy noted a minor fracture to his skull as well as cuts and bruises similar to those found on the other bodies. His watched had stopped at 8:45.

A homicide investigation was opened. What could have possibly made this group of experienced mountaineers slash their way through the side of their tent and flee into the devastating cold, half dressed and shoeless? And where, were the four remaining students?

The answer to the latter question came 3 months later. In early May the snow on the mountain had begun to thaw, a local Mansi hunter and his dog were making their way through the forest when they stumbled across a makeshift snow den in a ravine. Pieces of ripped clothing were found strewn across the area and a second search party was called in. Using avalanche probes around the den, the four remaining bodies were uncovered.

And if you thought the mystery was strange before, it was only just beginning.

All four bodies were found together, around two hundred and fifty feet from the tall cedar tree.

Nicolay Thibeaux-Brignolle had suffered serious head trauma, his skull had been fractured so badly that some pieces of bone had been driven into the brain. Aleksandr Kolevatov had a wound behind his ear and his neck was twisted in a strange way.

Lyudmila Dubinina, the youngest of the party at just 20 years of age, and Semyon Zolotaryov the eldest at 37 had suffered the most brutal injuries. The two bodies had crushed chests with multiple broken ribs, Dubinina was missing her tongue, and both were missing their eyes. There was also a massive haemorrhage in the 20-year old’s heart.

A medical examiner later compared the wounds he had seen to that of an automobile moving at high speed, they looked as if they’d been hit hard by a car.

As if all of these facts weren’t creating enough questions, examinations of their clothes deepened the mystery even further. A laboratory found that several items of clothing were emitting unnaturally high levels of radiation. A radiological expert testified that, because the bodies had been exposed to running water for months, these levels of radiation must originally have been “many times greater.”

On the 28th May 1959 the homicide case was abruptly closed. The head prosecutor, Lev Ivanov, concluded that the incident was not that of murder therefore a homicide case was not necessary. He ended his report with this sentence. “It should be concluded that the cause of the hikers’ demise was an overwhelming force, which they were not able to overcome.”

Understandably upset by this lack of an answer, the families of the students demanded further investigation, they even went as far as to suggest the deaths were related to the Russian Military. But they were forcefully told, “You will never know the truth, so stop asking questions.”

Fingers of course began to point in every direction. A military cover up, U.F.O’s, the indigenous Mansi people, even a yeti attack. And this, is where folklore takes over.

The idea that the brutal death of 9 fit and intelligent people was purely the result of hyperthermia is hard to swallow. Why would they have fled the tent in the first place? How were the terrible injuries sustained? Another answer given by investigators was an avalanche, but the slope was considered too shallow and how would four of the party be able to travel over a mile away from the tent on foot after sustaining such incapacitating injuries?

The lack of answers is as infuriating now as it was then. Some of the first people to be blamed were those native to the region, the Mansi. Despite being key helpers in the search for the lost party, they became the prime suspects. They theorised that the group might have strayed onto sacred land, and the Mansi, enraged by this disrespect had murdered them. In 2015, 56 years after the incident, a book was published suggesting that a group of Mansi hunters were high on magic mushrooms used in Shamanic rituals and had gone berserk.

But back in 1959 police had investigated these claims, and after arresting several men and women had concluded that the Mansi played no part in the mysterious deaths, they had been nothing but helpful and supportive of the Russian search.

Another common belief at the time was that it was the fault of the military. A variety of theories are believed. One is that the party had accidentally strayed onto a weapons testing site, although after years of searching and the release of confidential documents, no evidence of this has ever been found. Another idea was that the group had stumbled into a CIA operation, and having seen things they weren’t supposed to had been assassinated by American spies. The spies had then created the mysterious carnage to throw off suspicions. But as with the weapons testing theory, there has never been any evidence to substantiate this.

It’s at this point that we begin moving away from it being the result of a humans or a natural occurrence. And the first place we arrive at, are U.F.O’s.

In 1990 Lev Ivanov, the initial prosecutor for the homicide case, released an article he had always believed to be the truth. At the time he was forbidden from releasing it with his report and told to keep his personal believes out of the investigation. But after retiring, Ivanov decided to share his findings. The article was entitled “Enigma of fireballs” and suggested that the deaths were the result of powerful heat rays, or fireballs, which had come from a U.F.O. He claimed that many of the trees around the body had unusual burn marks on them, and the last photograph in Krivonishchenko’s camera showed flares and streaks of light against a black background.

By 1990 Ivanov was by no means the first to have suggested the culprits were not from Earth, but his addition added even more fuel to the fire.

Possibly the most entertaining theory, and my personal favourite, is a Yeti attack. Many people argue that the distance covered by the students and their state of undress suggests they were fleeing something. The brutal injuries sustained by several members of group could, perhaps, have been caused by a beast.

The Yeti is known by many names across the world. The abominable Snowman, Big Foot, Sasquatch, and the Ural Mountains have their own tales of a similar creature. A creature the Mansi call, Menkvi.

The Menkvi is a forest spirit, it is described as a large humanoid creature, covered head to toe in fur. Some reports suggest it resembles the appearance of a werewolf, but as far as world folklore is concerned, the Menkvi and the Yeti are one and the same.

The yeti is said to roam its native home in the Himalayas and has done for hundreds of years. Alexander the Great demanded to see a Yeti when he conquered the Indus Valley in 326 B.C. But local people informed him they were unable to present one because the creatures could not survive at that low an altitude.

All kinds of unexplainable events are attributed to its existence. Reindeer and Caribou attacks, mysterious sightings in the forests, foul smells with no discernible cause, and even giant footsteps spotted littering the mountain side on Everest.

Far more recently, in 2011, the Russian government took a decided interest in the legend of the Himalayan Yeti and set about to prove its existence.

They organised a conference in Siberia and brought together a group of Bigfoot experts. A researcher and biologist John Bindernagel claimed that he saw evidence that the Yeti not only exists but also build nests and shelters out of twisted tree branches. Following the conference, the group made a statement, announcing to the world that they had "indisputable proof" of the Yeti, and were 95 percent sure it existed based on some grey hairs found in a clump of moss in a cave.

As is the case with so many of stories, it didn’t take long for this proof to be declared a hoax.

Jeff Meldrum, a professor of anatomy and anthropologist at Idaho State University who endorses the existence of Bigfoot, said that he suspected the twisted tree branches had been faked. Not only was there obvious evidence of tool-made cuts in the supposedly "Yeti-twisted" branches, but the trees were also conveniently located just off a well-travelled trail. Not exactly the location you would expect to encounter a Yeti nest.

Meldrum believed the entire Russian expedition was most likely a publicity stunt, designed to entice more tourists to the area.

So, with the theory of the Yeti still solidly fictitious, we are once again left none the wiser. Folklore has done its best to answer this mystery, but the facts remain; something did kill those young hikers. And in 2020, 61 years after the Dyatlov pass incident, scientists were very certain they’d solved it, with the help of a very surprising source. 

Disney’s hit movie Frozen was released in 2013, it used world class animation and caught the attention of many viewers. One of those viewers was Johan Gaume. Gaume is the head of the Snow Avalanche Simulation Laboratory in Lausanne, Switzerland.

It has been his belief for many years that a delayed avalanche was responsible for the fateful incident on the freezing night in 1959.

After watching Frozen, Gaume was blown away by the simulation of an avalanche used during an action sequence. The accuracy of the snow fall was astounding.

He contacted the animators to ask them how they’d managed to achieve such lifelike results.

He travelled to Hollywood and together, using the film’s snow animation code combined with his own avalanche simulation model, Gaume created a much darker scenario, he simulated the impact an avalanche could have on a human body.

Using research gained in the 70’s, when General Motors used real human cadavers to calculate the damage a car crash could do to a body, Gaume was able to calibrate his impact models with impressive precision.

He discovered that because the hikers had used their skis as the base of their beds, when the snow hit, it struck unusually rigid targets, increasing the impact.

 The models demonstrated that a 16-foot-long block of solid snow could, easily, break the ribs and skulls of people sleeping on a rigid bed. Injuries which would have been fatal if help was not immediately on hand, which on the side of an isolated mountain at night, it most definitely was not.

So why was the idea of an avalanche written off so early on?

Most of the dismissal of the theory was based on the fact that the slope was deemed too shallow for an avalanche to have occurred. Especially an avalanche which was big enough and moving with enough speed to have caused such serious blunt force trauma.

But those simulations created by the researchers showed that the avalanche wouldn’t have to have been big to cause immense damage. Its small size would also explain the lack of evidence found during the initial investigation, the snowfall continued and by the time a rescue team arrived, any evidence would have been rendered invisible.

When the party made a cut in the snow to pitch their tents, they unknowingly destabilized the slope. The diary entries found from that night spoke of very strong winds blowing down the mountain. Current researchers have suggested that winds such as these could easily have blown snow from higher up towards the campsite. This gradual increase on the unstable slope could have built and built until the weight became too much, eventually becoming dislodged and crashing into the sleeping hikers. This would also explain the long debated 9-hour delay between the setting up of camp and the fatal incident.

The avalanche hit the hikers as they slept, the ice and snow causing terrible damage to those closest to the impact point. In a frenzy the team slashed their way out of the tent and stumbled into the night. They fled desperately towards the safety of the trees, and it was then the group became separated. Those with the worst injuries never moved from where they stopped running, they collapsed, succumbing to the trauma. It’s likely that the further damage was caused by scavenging animals, taking their eyes and tongue.

Those who had avoided the blunt trauma attempted to scramble their way back to the campsite but being completely ill equipped for the bitter and dangerous weather, hyperthermia overcame them, and they were never able to travel the distant.

The group of 9, full of life and hope, had been taken by the mountain.

62 years later, we have an answer at last. But is it the answer we wanted? Probably not. Speaking to the National Geographic, researcher Johan Gaume said, “People don’t want it to be an avalanche. It’s too normal. The unyielding skepticism, along with the haunting nature of the Dyatlov Pass incident, will keep conspiracy theories alive well into the future.”

What happens in the depth’s wilderness, when there’s no one left alive to tell the tale, will always be a mystery. Stories to find the truth became research, and that research formed an answer. But we can never truly know what happened that night in 1959 in the Ural Mountains, and for as long as there is mystery, there will be folklore.

You’ve been listening to The Folklorist, a podcast written and narrated by me Alannagh Cooke. If you’ve enjoyed today’s episode please like and subscribe on wherever you choose to listen, and you can also follow me on Instagram and Twitter at The Folklorist podcast.

Thank you for listening.