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

I first heard about the Dyatlov Pass Incident a few years ago, and since then I’ve been fascinated by this unsolved Soviet-era mystery.

The backstory: In January 1959, a group of 10 hikers (eight men & two women), mostly current and former students from Ural Polytechnical Institute, set out on a skiing expedition through the northern Ural Mountains in Russia. Nine of them died under suspicious circumstances on February 1 or 2, all of them having abandoned their tent during the night in sub-zero temps without shoes or proper outerwear. The 10th hiker survived because he had turned back for home days earlier due to health issues.

What would cause all nine experienced hikers to run from their only shelter in the dark of night without show more adequate protection from the freezing elements? What about the internal injuries found on a few of the hikers, along with radiation in their clothing? In May of 1959, the lead investigator concluded that the party died due to an “unknown compelling force,” but of course that really doesn’t answer anything.

The author’s account of this tragedy in DEAD MOUNTAIN is thoughtful, compelling, and well-researched. He tackles the main theories about what may have happened, including avalanche, murdered by outsiders, secret weapons testing, UFOs, and even Yeti attack. In the end he presents his own theory of events which I found quite plausible.

I loved the inclusion of expedition photos and diary entries from the hikers, which added a deeper human element to the telling of the Dyatlov Group’s tragic story. A captivating and haunting read for unsolved mystery fans. show less

3.75 stars

Nine Russian hikers disappeared in February 1959 while hiking in the Ural Mountains in Siberia. When they were found, their tent was all set up nicely, though it had a few rips, and their bodies were a ways from the tent. The oddest part was that they were in various states of (un)dress and not one of them was wearing their boots. This was in very cold -- far below freezing -- weather. The American author heard of the mystery and was interested in trying to figure out what happened.

The book was told in three different “parts” - the hikers (almost all in their early 20s), based on photos and diaries; the searchers, only a month to three months following the hikers’ disappearance; and the author’s trek to Russia to see show more what he could find out (including a trip to the place they disappeared, and interviews with a tenth hiker (in his 70s when the author met him), who had had to turn back early due to health issues).

I was particularly interested in the parts from the ‘50s. The author’s story, I didn’t find quite as interesting, until he came closer to the end where he ruled out many theories (and, of course, explained why he ruled them out), and put forth a scientific theory as to what may have caused the hikers to retreat from their tent, to ultimately succumb to the elements. There were plenty of photos included, as well. show less

The Dyatlov Pass Incident is one of those weird fortean moments in history. In 1959, nine young ski-hikers died in the frozen wilderness of the north Ural mountains. They were all experienced in the outdoors, and their bodies were found hundreds of meters from their tent, bootless, without their outer layers. The tent had been slashed from the inside, but was mostly intact. An investigation was inconclusive, an "outside compelling force" had caused the deaths. Into the vacuum flooded speculation: natural phenomenon like wind or avalanche didn't match the evidence at the site. Another group could have been responsible, either local Mani hunters or escape convicts, but there were no humans within 50 km of the place where the hikers died. show more Things got weirder: super-weapon tests, military experiments, UFOs and yetis.

Eichar is an American documentary film-maker who became fascinating by the incident, and out of pocket, funded a expedition back to where they died. In this book, he reconstruct the last journey of the Dyatlov Pass group, the innocent camaraderie of Soviet tourists in 1959 (in the USSR, the word is more like adventurer than fanny packs and buses). Eichar does a decent job reconstructing this, but I can't shake the feeling that he's not the right person. While he has a ear for narrative, and a rigorous skepticism, he doesn't speak Russian and he's not an outdoorsman, and I feel like there are dimensions missing.

Eichar does have an explanation, and it's not aliens. An atmospheric phenomenon called Kármán vortex street sent snow devils whirling off a nearby peak. The vortexes thrummed in infrasound, ultralow vibrations associated with psychological unease, and even extreme distress. Their nerves flaring for no perceptible reason, the Dyatlov group broke under the strain and ran into the night, where they met their deaths from cold and falling.

Ultimately, we'll never know what really happened, but Eichar makes a solid guess. show less

During the night of 1959 February 1-2, nine experienced young hikers who had encamped on a remote mountain in the Urals left their tent in such a hurry that they were half clothed. None of them made it back alive, six of them dying from hypothermia, three from injuries sustained in falling down a ravine. The mystery, of course, is why they fled from warm safety to cold death. There were no obvious reasons. The Soviet prosecutor who investigated the case memorably concluded that "an unknown compelling force should be considered the cause of the hikers' deaths."

Donnie Eichar is an American documentary filmmaker who recently became fascinated by the case. He tells two narratives in parallel chapters. In one, he gives a fairly straight show more narrative of the hikers' last trek up to the day of the catastrophe, followed by the story of the recovery operation and the official investigation. He can do the former fairly accurately because the hikers documented their activities in a group diary and in photographs. They were hoping to become certified as Grade III hikers and needed to prove to the certification committee that they had not only made the hike but made it in the approved manner. Eichar quotes from the diaries and more poignantly reproduces many of the photographs. They looked like good kids. What happened to them was so sad.

Eichar describes in the second narrative his own investigations, which included traveling to Russia, meeting with local experts, meeting with surviving relatives, and, best of all, interviewing the tenth hiker, the young man who turned back just before the others entered the wilderness. He persuades three Russian enthusiasts of the case to take him to the site of the tragedy. In the process, he creates the material for a decent travel account, which he provides.

Of course no reader, including me, expects him to do all this research and not offer his own conjecture at to what happened. He dismisses the popular theories: an attack by the local indigenous people, an avalanche, high winds, armed intruders, and effects from weapons testing. He doesn't waste time on UFOs and Yetis. He finally gets an idea from a popular physics magazine and, impressively, gets a renowned expert on the phenomena to agree with him. The "unknown compelling force" was "infrasound generated by [a] Kármán vortex street." Huh? The high wind around a dome shape projection on the mountain created a sonic effect that had a devastating impact on the human brain. It has not only been created artificially but it has been observed in nature. The kids never had a chance. show less

I seem to be going "every other" with liking books. This one didn't work for me. I thought I was going to read a mountaineering/exploration type book, which I tend to love. Instead this read more like true crime/unsolved mysteries.

The story is that a group of 9 young men and women in 1950s Soviet Union set out on a winter hiking trip into the Ural Mountains. They are experienced hikers trying for their Class 3 hiking certification - the highest level. They don't return on time and a rescue mission is sent out to look for them. What the rescue team finds is horrific. An empty tent with only the hikers' possessions - food in middle of being eaten, coats, boots, and 3 slashes in the back of the tent. They begin to find the bodies of the show more hikers in small groups, all over a mile from their tent. All deceased. All without boots/shoes.

What happened was never solved and an American writer decides to investigate. He goes to Russia several times to conduct interviews and retrace part of their route. The book became too much about him.

The book ends with the writer's version about what happened. I wasn't convinced at all.

Very unsatisfying. Also felt sort of voyeuristic and like it wasn't this random American's job to be investigating this. show less

Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident by Donnie Eichar tells of the 1959 Russian student hiking expedition where all 9 participants lost their lives in an unexplained and brutal manner. Eichar took up his quest to find answers in 2009 and intensive research and two trips to Russia eventually gave him a working theory on what happened the night of February 1, 1959. Although his theory hasn’t been totally accepted, it does seem to have the ring of truth to it and certainly makes more sense than aliens or mass murder.

The author is a film and TV director and producer. He came across the 50 year-old mystery of the Russian hikers and was so intrigued that he spent the next few years in following the information show more and in interviewing anyone who had a connection to the incident. The seven men and two women of the expedition were expert hikers, used to both the type of terrain and the fierce weather conditions that they found in the Ural Mountains. There were many theories swirling around including that of aliens, government conspiracy, escaped political prisoners and freak weather conditions that the author needed to explore and discard. But the fact remained that all nine hikers seemed to have left the tent in a frenzy that night and wandered off with no shoes and barely clothed in the sub-zero temperature.

I wasn’t expecting a lot from this book, but the author managed to totally intrigue me and I couldn’t put it down. The questions just seem to keep mounting and I believe the author did a thorough job of sorting though the information and not sensationalizing the events. This was an overwhelming tragedy at the time and even today stirs the emotions and baffles the mind. show less

“... he cited the cause of the hikers’ deaths as ‘an unknown compelling force.’”

When I found out about this case, I was totally intrigued. This book was the first one I could dig up. Overall, it works - all the details are here, lots of pictures, and a clear list of evidence. But the ending isn't very good, and the chapters about the author were fairly boring. The case itself is compelling and baffling, and I wish there was an actual answer, and not the one quoted above. But also not the one the author gives. I still want to know, just what the heck happened to those 9 hikers?