EP 75 "A Sinister Unknown: The Dyatlov Pass Backpacking Disaster" PART I

The year: 1959....the place: frozen Siberian mountains

when 22 year old university student Zinaida Kolmogoriva, (who went by Zina), sat scribbling away in her diary while snow flurries zipped against the window of her train car. Eight of her very best friends in the world (and a friendly newcomer named Sasha) sat bundled up around her, and everyone was buzzing with excitement. They were all part of the most accomplished hiking club at Sverdlovsk’s Ural Polytechnic Institute in Russia, and they had spent months carefully preparing to take on their biggest adventure yet. A hike…..covering one. hundred. and. eighty . six. miles. of rugged, sparsely habited terrain deep in the heart of the Ural Mountains…. in the dead of winter. As in—they were expected to encounter negative 25 degrees Fahrenheit dead. You campers can already guess how we’d feel about such a trip based on the title of this podcast—but for this close-knit group of adventurers, it meant that if they successfully completed this hike–they would be awarded the highest hiking certification in Russia as “Masters of Sport”. And this group was well on their way–everyone was very experienced in mountaineering and their group leader, 23 year old Igor Dyatlov, had meticulously prepared them for anything the mountains might throw their way. Or so he thought. Because what took place 10 days into the group’s hike was so horrific, and so…bizarre…that nearly 70 years later— “stumped” is still the best word even the most studied experts have when trying to determine what the hell happened in that frozen wilderness. Oh, there are theories—and don’t you worry, we’ll be getting into all of them today. But to truly believe any of them, you might have to admit that sometimes there are things in this world we just can’t rationally explain.

Back in the train car in 1959, Zina smiled at her friends hugging their massive trail backpacks and singing songs together to pass the time, and she wrote in her diary: “I wonder what awaits us in this hike?” This is Episode 75: PART 1 of The 1959 Dyatlov Pass Disaster.

Lights Out Campers.

SOURCES:

book: "Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident" by Donnie Eichar