Nine seasoned hikers die inexplicable deathsOne January 25, 1959, nine hikers from the Soviet Union's
Ural Polytechnic Institute set off from the city of
Sverdlovsk (1,200 miles east of Moscow) on a three-week cross-country skiing expedition to the nearby
Otorten Mountain range. Led by enthusiastic 23-year-old Igor Dyatlov, the group boarded a train in Ivdel (in the northern province of Sverdlovsk Oblast) and headed for the northern Urals. The team would never make it to their destination (nor ever be seen alive again) and their enigmatic deaths prompted an investigation which revealed many mysterious and still-unexplained anomalies. Some were found wearing only underwear, some with only one shoe or one sock, and some wearing the tattered remains of other party members clothing. Despite no evidence of a struggle, some had crushed skulls, broken bones, massive internal injuries, and missing eyes and tongues. All we know for certain is that their last moments on earth were filled with hopeless terror.
The Dylatov expeditionThe goal of the Dylatov expedition was to reach Ortorten, a mountain about 10 miles north of where their bodies were found. The route was ranked a "Category III", the most difficult, but all members of the expedition party were seasoned mountaineers - one ski instructor, three engineers, and seven environmental students. Ten people originally set off for the mountain but one, Yuri Yudin, was forced to go back because of illness. Yudin returned to the closest outpost (the settlement of Vizhai) while the nine remaining expeditionary members continued on their fateful journey to the nearby Ortorten mountain range.
Comment: Not the first such appearance: this happened in Sabah, Malaysia two years ago: