I-lulz: Fun IELTS Reading

Reading Passage One

The Story

The tragic Dyatlov Pass incident is an unsolved mystery that occurred in the Ural Mountains between February 1 and 2, 1959. Nine Soviet hikers, who were attending the Ural Polytechnical Institute at the time, died while camping in the cold mountainous region. They were led by Igor Dyatlov, a 23-year-old radio engineering student.  Even though they were an experienced trekking party, something nearly unexplainable caused them to dangerously and irresponsibly cut their way out of their tent and flee the campsite in panic – all while inadequately dressed for the heavy snowfall and sub-zero temperatures. They were found dead the next day, scattered around the campsite and in the surrounding forest. Their bodies showed signs of hypothermia, but some also had strange injuries…

The Expedition

Diaries and cameras found around their last campsite made it possible to track the group’s route up to the day preceding the incident. On the 31^st of January, the group arrived at the edge of a highland area and began to prepare for climbing. A wooded valley, where they cached surplus food and equipment, was used as a location to help them return back home. The next day, the hikers started to move through the pass. Because of worsening weather conditions—snowstorms and decreasing visibility—they lost their direction and deviated too far west. When they realized their mistake, the group decided to set up camp there on the slope of a mountain. It was speculated that Dyatlov probably did not want to lose the altitude they had gained – whatever the reason, all nine campers would perish.

Search and Discovery

Multiple weeks later, the travelers’ relatives demanded a rescue operation, as they had not heard from the students for some time. The head of the institute sent the first rescue groups, consisting of volunteer students and teachers, on an initial search. Later, the army and militsiya (police) forces became involved, with planes and helicopters ordered to join the operation.

On the 26th February, the searchers found the group’s abandoned and badly damaged tent on Kholat Syakhl. The campsite baffled the search party. Mikhail Sharavin, the student who found the tent, said “the tent was half torn down and covered with snow. It was empty, and all the group’s belongings and shoes had been left behind.” Investigators said the tent had been cut open from inside. Nine sets of footprints, left by people wearing only socks or a single shoe or even barefoot, could be followed, leading down to the edge of a nearby wood. At the forest’s edge, under a large Siberian pine, the searchers found the visible remains of a small fire, along with two bodies without shoes or clothes. The branches on the tree were broken up to five meters high, suggesting that one of the skiers had climbed up to look for something, perhaps the camp. Between the pine and the camp, the searchers found three more corpses, who died in poses suggesting that they were attempting to return to the tent. The rest were discovered much further in the valley.

Investigation and Explanations

The investigation concluded that a “compelling natural force” had caused the deaths. Numerous theories have been put forward to account for the unexplained deaths.

Katabatic wind

In 2019, a Swedish-Russian expedition was made to the site, and after investigations, they proposed that a violent force called a katabatic wind was a plausible explanation for the incident. A sudden katabatic wind would have made it impossible to remain in the tent, and the most rational course of action would have been for the hikers to cover the tent with snow and seek shelter behind the tree line. On top of the tent, there was also a torch left turned on, possibly left there intentionally so that the hikers could find their way back to the tent once the winds subsided.

Infrasound

Another hypothesis popularized by Donnie Eichar’s 2013 book Dead Mountain is that wind created a vortex which can produce infrasound capable of inducing panic attacks in humans. According to Eichar’s theory, the infrasound generated by the wind as it passed over the top of the Holatchahl mountain was responsible for causing physical discomfort and mental distress in the hikers. Eichar claims that, because of their panic, the hikers were driven to leave the tent by whatever means necessary, and fled down the slope. The traumatic injuries suffered by three of the victims were the result of their stumbling over the edge of a ravine.

Military tests

In one speculation, the campsite fell within the path of a Soviet parachute-mine exercise. This theory alleges that the hikers, woken by loud explosions, fled the tent in a shoeless panic and found themselves unable to return for supply retrieval. After some members froze to death attempting to endure the bombardment, others commandeered their clothing only to be fatally injured by subsequent parachute-mine concussions. There are indeed records of parachute-mines being tested by the Soviet military in the area around the time the hikers were there.

Avalanche

On 11 July 2020, Andrey Kuryakov of the Urals Federal District directorate announced an avalanche to be the “official cause of death” for the Dyatlov group. Later, independent computer simulation and analysis by Swiss researchers also suggest avalanche as the cause. The most appealing aspect of Kuryakov’s scenario is that the Dyatlov party’s actions no longer seem irrational. A snow slab would probably have made loud cracks and rumbles as it fell across the tent, making an avalanche seem imminent. Although the skiers made an error in the placement of their tent, everything they did subsequently was textbook: they conducted an emergency evacuation to ground that would be safe from an avalanche, they took shelter in the woods, they started a fire and they dug a snow cave. Had they been less experienced, they might have remained near the tent, dug it out, and survived. But avalanches are by far the biggest risk in the mountains in winter, and the more experience you have, the more you fear them. The skiers’ expertise doomed them.

However, the location of the incident did not have any obvious signs of an avalanche having taken place. An avalanche would have left certain patterns and debris distributed over a wide area. The bodies found within a month of the event were covered with a very shallow layer of snow and, had there been an avalanche of sufficient strength to sweep away the second party, these bodies would have been swept away as well; this would have caused more serious and different injuries in the process and would have damaged the tree line.