Where is the Djatlov Pass? Mountain of the Dead - Dyatlov Pass

Alas, the death of tourists, and sometimes entire groups, is not a rare occurrence. Going on a hike, people challenge the harsh nature. Winter hikes are especially dangerous. If you believe the statistics, then from 1975 to 2004. In such campaigns, one hundred and eleven people died. But here we will tell about the absolutely unique, mysterious and still unsolved case of death of a group of skiers who went to the North Urals. The place of death of all nine people was the Djatlov Pass. Where it is, everyone now knows, but then, in 1959, it was the nameless saddle of Mount Holatchahl. Now it bears the name of the head of the deceased expedition Igor Dyatlov. Despite the fact that more than 50 years have passed since the tragedy, the mysterious death of skiers continues to bother the minds.

Pass Djatlova: location

Mount Holat-Syahyl, or Holatchahl, is a little apart from the Main Range of the Urals. Its height is not very large - one thousand ninety-six meters, but the location at the sixty-first degree of northern latitude makes it difficult for tourists, especially in winter. Recall that the expedition led by Dyatlov went on a campaign at the end of January. The death of people occurred on the night of the first to second February. The saddle where the Djatlov Pass is located is a jumper between the Kholat-Sahyl and an unnamed peak 905 meters high. The very name Holatchahl is translated from Mansi as "mountain of the dead". This peak is located in the Ivdelsky district in the north-west of the Sverdlovsk region, near the border with the Republic of Komi.

Expedition Dyatlova. Purpose

The campaign was timed to coincide with the 21st Congress of the CPSU. Participants - students and recent graduates of the Ural Polytechnic Institute - decided for sixteen days to ski 350 kilometers by climbing to the tops of Oikko-Chakur and Oorten. According to the classification of complexity, such a trek falls into the third category. At first, the expedition members were ten, and we know about the initial phase of the campaign from the words of this surviving tourist - Yuri Yudin. The group left Sverdlovsk on 23 January. Two days later the tourists reached the regional center of Ivdel. Then they got on the bus to the village of Vizhay. January 26, tourists on a truck with an open body reached the village of loggers. This trip saved Yudin's life, as he badly chilled his back and had to drop out of the group. Somehow he got along with the rest to the abandoned camp of the Gulag. But there he said goodbye to the members of the expedition, gave them his warm clothes and returned home. Next, the group had to move along the Lozva riverbed, then cross the Djatlov Pass, climb up to Holatchahl, turn to the Auspia creek ... It was supposed that by February 12, tourists would return to Vizhay.

What rescuers found

When in the middle of February the relatives of tourists sounded the alarm, searches were organized. As a result, a tent with a cut (later found out from inside) was found sideways. There were no people in it, but there were personal belongings, a camera and, most importantly, warm clothes and shoes. From the records in the diaries, you can restore the course of events until the evening of February 1. In the morning of this day, tourists built a storage in the valley of the Auspii Creek and began climbing Mount Holchatchahl. They were disturbed by a strong wind. They went down to the jumper where the Djatlov Pass is. The photo of the tent, which appears in the investigation file, demonstrates that it was placed according to all the rules. The bottom was served by skis, supported by its sticks, warmed it was the outer clothing of the participants. The opening of the side wall of the tent with a knife and the fact that the outer clothing and shoes were left indicates that the tourists left it very hastily. What made people get out on a thirty-degree frost?

Bodies

Only one and a half kilometers down the slope from the place where the Djatlov Pass is located, two corpses of men were found. It seems that the tourists, who left the tent half-dressed in a panic, decided to build a fire. In this place the forest began already. Although everywhere there was a lot of brushwood, tourists cut many branches from a tall tree. These two were only in their underwear, with traces of burns on their bodies. 300 meters from these bodies, but towards the abandoned tent, the body of Igor Dyatlov was discovered. He was warmly dressed, but randomly, for example, in different socks. Even closer to the place where the Djatlov Pass is, found the corpse of a girl. She did not have shoes, although she was warmly dressed. On the corpse there were traces of bleeding from the nose. Nearby were found the body of another man in one valenka, wearing four pairs of socks. The location of these three bodies indicates that they died on the way from campfire to tent. And only in May, when the snow began to melt, the search team found the rest of the body in the ravine, 75 meters from the fire. They were dressed better, but in someone else's clothes. They had a knife and a large number of cut off branches.

The version of the murder by the Mansis

The investigation, opened on the case of the death of people, did not reject any assumptions, even the most absurd. First interrogated three Mansi. But the Yalping-Nyer mountain sacred to the indigenous people of the North Urals is in a completely different place. And the mountain of Holatchahl and the Djatlov Pass (where it is located) are considered to be damned places in Mansi, the hunters do not go there. Later the investigation found that the tent was cut from the inside. At the same time, no other traces (either human or animal) have been identified, and all the items of the expedition members are in place. The forensic experts concluded that, with the exception of three people, all participants in the campaign died of hypothermia.

Avalanche Avoidance Version

The place where the Djatlov Pass is located is not dangerous in this sense. In addition, not so much snow fell. Corpses covered the layer in 10-20 centimeters. The only exception was the four bodies found in the ravine. But there the snow was windy. With this assumption, the fact of the integrity of the tent remains unclear, as well as why the tourists ran down the slope, instead of, according to the rules, escape from the avalanche.

Technogenic version

Mansi, who testified, said that they saw "fireballs" on the night of death. They drew the phenomenon observed by them, and also indicated the place where it happened - the Djatlov Pass. About the alleged phenomenon, the burnt tops of young fir-trees near the fireplace were testified. But the snow did not melt, and the damage to the forest was not of a concentric nature. That is, there was no epicenter of any explosion. But from the investigation file, the Mansi drawings disappeared. Nevertheless, it was decided to exhume corpses and send them for additional research. Numerous fractures of the ribs were found in bodies found in the ravine. And the clothes of some tourists wore traces of a fairly significant radioactive contamination.

What happened on the night of February 1 to 2

Until the end, it was not possible to establish. Something prompted people in the middle of the night to hurry, but without panic leave the tent and pass Djatlov. Where the storage is located, the manager knew, and so he hoped to find there everything necessary. The group moved down the hill, stretching into a chain. When the leader realized that he was leading the group in an erroneous direction, that they had left the Djatlov Pass, where the storage was located with a mass of warm things, and were moving along a different slope, then probably he instructed to light a fire and start building a temporary hut. But a small fire did not give the opportunity to warm up all the members of the group. The fact that some tourists were stripped to their underwear, while others are dressed in their pants and jackets, can testify to the brutal struggle for survival. At least three people decided to return to the tent. Why they could not overcome a mile and a half? What happened to the people left by the fire? How did the four members of the expedition sink into the ravine? These questions we can not find an answer ever. And the investigation closed the criminal case. The cause of death was recognized as "spontaneous force".