by Aaron Mahnke
In 1812, she boarded a ship that was meant to carry her away from South Carolina—where her husband was governor—to see her father in New York. An incredibly fast schooner known as the Patriot left Georgetown harbor in December of that year, and was never seen again.
One of the risks that travelers take upon themselves is that they might never reach their destination. Whether the journey is one of exploration, personal travel, or recreation, there is always the chance for failure. And the farther from civilization, the worse those chances become.
Which is why, when a group of hikers marched off into the Ural Mountains in 1959, the odds were decidedly—and tragically—stacked against them.
INTO THE WILD
If there was ever a textbook example of whiteout conditions, the night of February 2, 1959, would have been it. The team of ten was huddled together inside their tents against the wind and snow and freezing rain. I realize it would be odd to refer to a blizzard as “hell,” but just because it lacked flames and heat didn’t mean it wasn’t a place of suffering.
The trip hadn’t started out like that, though. They had intended it to be a pleasant expedition into the mountains. No glorious mission or treasure to seek. This was meant to be a recreational trip. That’s not how it ended, though. Then again, life rarely turns out the way we imagined it would, does it?
The team consisted of nine college students from Ural Polytechnical Institute, all of whom were led by their instructor, Igor Dyatlov. Their journey had actually begun on January 27—a week prior—in the northern Russian village of Vizhay, east of the Ural Mountains. They had been transported there by truck, along with their camping equipment and supplies, because the small village was the most northern settlement in the region. Beyond those borders, they would enter into the wild. A literal no-man’s-land. This was a region of Russia that had once been called home by the indigenous people known as the Mansi, sometimes called the Voguls. Centuries ago they ruled the northern lands, even fighting against the Russians until they were finally assimilated in the thirteenth century. Today, most Mansi live in Moscow or other large cities, and there are very few who remain in their northern homelands.
The college students and their instructor were well prepared. Aside from the expected camping supplies that you might expect, they also set up a communication plan. The trip was a there-and-back journey, with the goal of reaching Mt. Otorten within a week, and then returning to Vizhay by February 12. If they failed to check in, Igor had told friends, start to worry.
It was going to be a dangerous expedition, without a doubt. The terrain was hostile, and there was no support network north of the village. Still, the trip began smoothly enough, and the team made good progress. They headed east, and when they reached the foot of the mountains they stopped and set aside a supply of food for their return trip. That was January 31. The next day they started their climb.
The weather in the mountains wasn’t helping them out. It was clear early on that the trip was going to take longer than they expected, but that didn’t stop them. Instead, they hiked slow and steady into the wind and snow, aiming north for Mt. Otorten. By the end of the day on February 2, though, Igor and the others realized they were more than a mile off course. Somehow, thanks in part to the disorienting blizzard, they had drifted west, and found themselves on the northern slope of the mountain known as Kholat Syakhl.
The smart decision would have been to hike north less than a mile and set up camp in the line of trees below. But they had worked hard to reach such a high altitude, and it would be exhausting to have to climb back up the next day, so the team decided to ride out the storm where they were. Exposed to the wind on the bare mountain, with temperatures as low as -25° Fahrenheit, it was going to be a long, cruel night.
It must have been frustrating for them. On a clear day, they would have been able to see Mt. Otorten from where they were. They knew it, too. They were so close to their goal, and yet it must have felt like they were miles away. Instead of feeling like they had accomplished something, they were left to make the best of their mistake.
They set up their single tent, unpacked, ate a meal, and then settled in for the night. We know all of this because it’s documented in their journals. We have the notes about their travel decisions, the weather reports, and the challenges they faced. We even have photos of the team setting up camp right there on the snow-covered side of the mountain.
After that, though, the records of the team led by Igor Dyatlov are silent. We have no more words from the team members. No more reports. And no way to speak to them now about what happened to them all.
All we have left now are their corpses.
BREAKING CAMP
Let me be upfront here: we don’t know what happened to the hikers. Well, that’s not entirely true. We know they died, but we don’t know how their deaths were brought about.
What we do know is that the details that were uncovered by a later investigation seem to point toward something odd. Something that doesn’t seem to fit with preconceived notions of hiking accidents. In the end, though, all we’re left with are assumptions, unprovable theories, and a feeling of dread. Dread, because the obvious explanation isn’t something that leaves people with warm, fuzzy feelings.
The night of February 2 had been cold and snowy. But when the search party finally located the hikers’ camp on February 26, they found the scene of a disaster, not a storm. The tent was covered in snow—something one might expect—but it was also empty. There was also evidence that it had been torn in half from the outside.
Scattered in the snow around the remains of the tent were items that had belonged to the hikers, including clothing and warm shoes. Which went a long way toward explaining why so many of the footprints that could be seen exiting the area of the tent had been made by bare—or at least shoeless—feet.
The prints all led down the slope of the mountain toward the line of trees that should have been the team’s campsite for the night, had they made the right decision. The investigators followed along in that direction with hopes of finding the missing hikers. When they reached the trees, though, what they discovered only added to the mystery.
The first two bodies they uncovered were located at the outer edge of the forest. Both were clothed in nothing more than their underwear. They discovered signs of a campfire there, hinting that they had perhaps walked down the mountainside in search of better shelter from the storm, but other clues didn’t support this.
Branches in nearby trees had been broken and snapped off as high as sixteen feet above the snow. Either someone had tried to climb them or something else broke them. Some have suggested that something very tall had chased the hikers into the trees, breaking off limbs as it entered—or exited—the woods.
Three more bodies were found buried in the snow on the slope between the torn tent and the broken trees. The five hikers were all said to have died of hypothermia, according to later medical examinations. But what had happened to the rest of the party?
In the end, it would take another two months of searching the pass to find the remaining four. On May 4, 1959—a full three months after the blizzard that ended their journey—they were located in a ravine just 250 feet from the camp. But their discovery introduced far more questions than answers.
These four were better clothed than their friends, but they hadn’t died of hypothermia. Although what killed them remains a mystery to this day, the evidence points to something unusual. One of the hikers was said to have been missing her tongue. Some historians have suggested that she had simply bitten it off in a moment of panic, but that wouldn’t explain why her eyes were missing as well.
Many others had suffered major skull trauma, and their chests had been crushed. The medical examiner who studied the bodies said that the level of force required to create such injuries was on the same level as that found in a high-speed auto
mobile accident. Some experts have suggested an avalanche, or perhaps a deadly fall, but there was no evidence of either at the site of the bodies.
That same medical examiner also ruled out the theory of an attack from nearby Mansi people. According to him, the injuries could not have been caused by other humans, because the force of the blows had simply been too strong. In other words, the injuries that these hikers suffered were unexplainable, nonhuman, and mysterious.
These are, of course, all the ingredients a story needs to truly become legendary. Today the region is referred to as Dyatlov Pass. And it’s the unknown element of the tragedy there that has pushed the events deep into the mind of popular culture. This story has a way of leaving many of us feeling haunted. Haunted, because it could very well happen to us.
We can plan for things we understand. We can find safety in them. The unknown, though, can leave us as vulnerable as hikers in a blizzard, exposed and unprepared.
PLACES AND NAMES
Our obsession with lost parties and expeditions, with people who wander off and disappear, is as strong today as it’s ever been. Movies, novels, television shows, and comics have all spent time and effort to recapture the mystery and thrill of the dangerous unknown. Our world seems to be full of it.
Loose ends have a way of making people uneasy. We want answers because answers make us feel safe, but we also want the thrill of a good mystery. We hate not knowing, and yet we also love the idea of the unknown. Ironic, I know, but true.
Decades later, we still have far more questions than answers. We don’t know what frightened the hikers enough to cause some of them to flee undressed from their tent in a subzero blizzard. We don’t know what caused the severe trauma to their heads and chests. What we don’t know about their demise vastly outstrips what we do know, and most people don’t like that.
Maybe something deeper was going on, though. There are those who believe the Russian government knows the truth. You see, after the investigation was completed in May 1959, all of the related documents were packaged up and shipped to a classified archive. When they were finally released four decades later, many of those reports were incomplete, with pages or paragraphs missing.
One last thought: as I mentioned before, the hikers were deep in Mansi territory when the tragedy happened. The lazy explanation early on was to blame the indigenous people of the area for the deaths of the hikers. It’s been a common crutch for many lost expeditions: civilized people wander too far into unexplored, untamed wilderness, and they are killed by native people who feel threatened by the newcomers.
There was, of course, no evidence of an attack. No clues pointed toward a group of outsiders. No footprints were found that didn’t belong to the hikers. And none of the injuries could be explained away with a theory like that.
But in the end, the answers might very well be found among the Mansi after all. Interestingly, the Mansi name for Mt. Otorten—the mountain they had been hiking toward but never reached—is translated as “don’t go there.”
Were the Mansi hiding a warning in plain sight all along? Did they know of some reason why travel to that mountain might not be the safest idea? It’s hard to say for sure.
And what about Kholat Syakhl, where the hikers camped, and died, that final night? That’s a Mansi name as well, given to the mountain many centuries—perhaps even millennia—ago.
It literally means “mountain of the dead.”
WHEN DUKE WILLIAM II of Normandy crossed the English Channel in late September 1066, he brought something with him. It was a tool that he planned to use in his quest to take the throne from Harold Godwinson, a man William saw as a thief, a liar, and the pretender to a throne that was meant for him alone.
This thing that William brought to England was something that we all take for granted today: the castle. Yes, it’s an invention that was already ancient by the time William landed on the shores of Sussex, but he brought a new style and approach to an old art. Before he did anything in England—before the battles and long marches across the countryside—he ordered his soldiers to build a castle.
He built it right there in Pevensey, near Hastings, where he would later defeat Harold in battle. His builders simply found a tall hill, built a wooden tower on top of it, and then surrounded the tower with a tall fence. No, it wouldn’t stand the test of time, but that wasn’t the goal. He simply needed a central point from which to make raids, to be a symbol of the Norman presence, and to put a figurative stake in the ground.
After the conquest, William’s nobility replaced those wooden towers with stone. And stone, as you know, can last a very long time. In fact, some of those original castles, now a thousand years old, are still standing today. But those structures, and the ones that followed them, were built to serve a greater purpose.
Each was a physical representation of the king’s power. They were majestic and grand and impenetrable. Yes, they were tools of horrible oppression, but they were also the armor plating that protected the new and fragile Norman rule of England.
But every tool can be misused. And within those stone walls, all of that power and oppression was brought to bear on the innocent and guilty alike. Blood was spilled, lives were ended, and mysteries were born. And in some castles, the echoes of those horrible deeds are still with us today.
LASTING IMPRESSION
The English word castle comes to us from the Latin word castrum. It simply means “a fortified place.” The first European castles were built in the ninth and tenth centuries, but these were fairly unsophisticated compared to what William brought with him when he invaded England. His castles did more than just provide enormous walls to hide behind.
When the first London fortress was constructed in 1066, it was made of wood, like all his other early constructions, and it followed that new design. Roughly a decade later, the timber was replaced with a more permanent stone structure. When it was completed, the central building that we now call the White Tower became the center of the English universe.
Back then, it was the royal residence, a symbol of the king’s power, and a military stronghold. Since then, it’s been home to the Royal Mint and a zoo for exotic animals; it was even a prison until 1952. That’s a whole lot of purpose to cram into just twelve square acres. Today, the castle is home to the Crown Jewels, a fantastic museum, and extensive tours that attract millions of people each year.
If the Tower is known for one thing over all the others, it’s the imprisonment of those who became caught up in the sharp gears of the political machine. Sir Walter Raleigh, Lady Jane Grey, Guy Fawkes, Anne Boleyn, and even Queen Elizabeth I were all held there for a time. Some walked out with their lives intact; others, though, didn’t fare so well.
When Edward IV died in 1483, his brother Richard became regent until Edward’s boys, nine and twelve at the time, were old enough to take over. Instead, Richard had both of them declared illegitimate, and a short time later they vanished from palace life. It wasn’t until 1674—almost two centuries later—that a wooden chest was found buried in the ground outside the White Tower. Inside, workmen found a collection of bones that made up two small human skeletons, one slightly larger than the other.
The most common residents of the Tower of London, by far, are the yeoman warders, the ceremonial guardians of the castle. Today they function primarily as tour guides, and each warder lives with their family in an apartment within the walls. It was in one of those apartments, during World War II, that a warder and his wife were pulled from sleep by the sounds of their daughter screaming for help.
The young girl was crying and trembling when they found her. When they asked her what was wrong, she told her parents that she had seen something in her bedroom that had frightened her. It was so frightening that she refused to go back. When they pressed her, she told them that she’d woken up to discover that there were strange children in her room. Two boys, in
fact. They were just sitting quietly on the edge of her bed. Each was dressed in old clothing.
Far to the north, Scotland has its own fair share of troubled fortresses. And sitting at the center of them all is Edinburgh Castle. But where the Tower of London was constructed almost exclusively within a small two-century window, Edinburgh Castle is more of a living, breathing creature. While St. Margaret’s Chapel is the only remaining part of the original twelfth-century structure, other parts have been added throughout the centuries, giving it all sort of a sprawling, organic quality. But of course, where there’s life, there’s also death.
Like most castles, Edinburgh served as a prison for criminals and political enemies of the crown. In one tale, a prisoner managed to escape his cell and stow away inside a wheelbarrow full of manure, with the hope of being carted out through the gate. Instead, the entire load was dumped off the West Port side, where he plummeted to his death below. Visitors to the ledge have often described the overwhelming scent of dung and the odd sensation of being pushed by unseen hands.
The tunnels and dungeons of the castle’s lower level have played host to countless stories of unexplainable experiences. Heavy breathing, sounds of knocking or hammering, and pained-sounding moans have all been heard in the dark, subterranean portions of the building. And these events, some say, are connected to the tale of Lady Janet Douglas.
In 1528, Lady Douglas was accused of witchcraft and conspiracy by King James V. First her servants and family were captured and imprisoned. Then they were tortured in order to produce forced confessions against her. She herself was rumored to be kept isolated in the dark for so long that she actually went blind. And all the while, carpenters in leather aprons wandered the lanes above as they built the wooden platform upon which she would soon be burned alive.
