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

Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident is a 2013 non-fiction book by American writer and filmmaker Donnie Eichar. Despite having no previous mountaineering expertise, Eichar became obsessed with the unsolved mystery of the deaths of nine young hikers in the Soviet Union in 1959. He journeyed to Russia twice to speak to experts and to retrace the hikers’ steps as closely as possible. His text reconstructs the final days of the hikers’ lives, the timeline of rescue and recovery efforts, and his own search for the truth. Eichar is not the first to write a book about the incident; there has been intense speculation about exactly how the hikers died for decades. Eichar tries hard to examine all of the existing evidence as objectively as possible before reaching any conclusions.

Eichar’s book interweaves three different narratives: a reconstruction of the final days of the Dyatlov hikers’ lives, a description of the search party and research initiatives a few weeks later, and Eichar’s own experiences researching the incident between 2010 and 2013.

This guide uses the 2013 Chronicle Books LLC e-book edition of the book.

Content Warning: This text includes discussions of the violent deaths of nine people, including graphic descriptions of corpses.

Summary

In February 1959, in the Ural Mountains, USSR, two members of a search party came across a partially collapsed tent. It was their first sign of the nine missing hikers in the Dyatlov hiking party. The tent was orderly, but there was nobody nearby; the searchers did not understand why nine hikers would have abandoned their only shelter. In 2012, author Donnie Eichar hikes through the snow toward what has become known as Dyatlov Pass, hoping to find answers. He considers the mystery that he is trying to solve: Nine accomplished young hikers all fled their tent at once in the middle of the night. Six of them died of hypothermia, while three died of severe injuries. When the bodies were found, one was missing a tongue, and several articles of the hikers’ clothing were radioactive. Eichar became obsessed with the mystery when he first learned about it. 

Eichar reconstructs the hikers’ timeline, starting on January 23, 1959, the day that they left their university and started their train journey toward the start of their trail. There were nine friends in the group, which was led by Igor Dyatlov. On their first train, they met up with a tenth member, a slightly older man with extensive hiking experience. The hikers were trying to get their Grade III hiking certification, which required them to complete a very challenging journey. By the middle of February, the Dyatlov party’s family members started to worry; the hikers should have been back, but there was no sign of them. The university reluctantly started searching for them. They were only looking for nine people; one hiker, Yuri Yudin, turned back early and was safe.

In 2010, Eichar arrives in Russia for the first time. He is disappointed to find that many of the researchers he speaks with espouse what he sees as implausible conspiracy theories to explain the hikers’ deaths. Igor Dyatlov’s younger sister insists that her brother did not freeze to death, though she also does not know what happened to him. Eichar tries to contact Yuri Yudin but does not succeed. He reconstructs more of the hikers’ journey and the early search party’s efforts. In 2012, Eichar visits Russia for a second time, having done extensive research in the interim. One of his contacts puts him in touch with Yuri Yudin. Like everyone, Yudin struggles to provide definitive answers to Eichar’s questions.

The hikers’ story continues. They spent time in increasingly remote settlements on their way to the trailhead. Weeks later, the search party uncovered two dead bodies, neither of which was wearing shoes; both had been members of the group. Then, they found two more bodies.

In 2012, Yudin tells Eichar that he believes his friends were murdered by military personnel, as they would never have left their tent voluntarily. He cites the injuries sustained by three of the hikers as primary evidence. Eichar and his companions prepare to hike the same route as the Dyatlov party, despite Eichar’s lack of mountaineering experience.

In 1959, as the Dyatlov group started hiking, Yudin began to experience severe back pain and reluctantly turned back. The rest of the Dyatlov group’s journey continued in rough terrain. Their diary sheds light on friendships and petty arguments along the way. Photographs from February 1, the day they died, are cheerful.

The search party eventually found a fifth body and discovered that part of the hikers’ tent was cut open from the inside. In March 1959, Yudin took on the grim task of going through the belongings that had so far been recovered at the Dyatlov site. There were funerals for the hikers, but the government put a lot of pressure on families to minimize visible mourning and publicity. People started to suspect a government coverup, weapons testing, or even UFOs as potential causes for the group’s death. The search party found finds the last four bodies, all of which were at the bottom of a ravine. Three of them had sustained severe injuries. In an autopsy, researchers determine that some of the hikers’ clothing is radioactive. The remaining hikers receive closed casket funerals.

In 2012, Eichar and his companions retrace the hikers’ steps as closely as modern trains allow. Eichar rides a snowmobile toward the Dyatlov campsite. He visits a large rock nearby where people have left photographs and notes dedicated to the hikers. He finally reaches the location of the tent and is surprised that the slope does not look steep enough to make an avalanche likely. Avalanche has been one of the prevailing theories for decades.

In 2013, back in Los Angeles, Eichar lists and then dismisses all of the major theories of how the hikers died: avalanche, strong winds, an attack by other people or by animals, weapons testing, and UFOs. Instead, he starts researching a phenomenon called infrasound, where certain very low sound frequencies can cause humans to experience psychological distress and confusion. He meets with an expert to discuss whether infrasound could have caused the hikers to leave their tent. The expert is initially skeptical, but upon further review of the evidence, he agrees that Eichar is likely right. With this theory in mind, Eichar reconstructs a plausible timeline of the final hours of the hikers’ lives. He dismisses the radioactivity as potentially caused by environmental contamination and suggests that the hikers’ injuries were caused by their fall into the ravine. Given their courage, Eichar believes they all deserved their Grade III hiking certification.