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

by Donnie Eichar

Overview

In February 1959, a group of nine experienced hikers in the Russian Ural Mountains died mysteriously on an elevation known as Dead Mountain. Eerie aspects of the incident—unexplained violent injuries, signs that they cut open and fled the tent without proper clothing or shoes, a strange final photograph taken by one of the hikers, and elevated levels of radiation found on some of their clothes—have led to decades of speculation over what really happened. This New York Times bestseller is a gripping work of literary nonfiction delves into the mystery through unprecedented access to the hikers' own journals and photographs, rarely seen government records, dozens of interviews, and the author's retracing of the hikers' fateful journey in the Russian winter. A fascinating portrait of the young hikers in the Soviet era, and a skillful interweaving of the hikers narrative, the investigators' efforts, and the author's investigations, here for the first time is the real story of what happened that night on Dead Mountain.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781452129563
Publisher:	Chronicle Books LLC
Publication date:	10/22/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	39,066
File size:	8 MB

About the Author

Donnie Eichar is a Florida native brought up among a family of storytellers. He's an acclaimed director and producer of film and television who recently produced MTV's groundbreaking documentary series The Buried Life. He lives in Malibu, California.

Editorial Reviews

08/12/2013
The mystery of the bizarre deaths of elite Russian hikers in a 1959 tragedy on a deadly Ural mountain is the subject of Eichar’s extensive investigation. Eichar, a film director and producer, tries to make sense of the puzzling tale of the dead students from Ural Polytechnic University; he sets off to interview the hikers’ relatives, investigators, and even a lone survivor. Following the search party’s retrievals of the bodies, the questions deepen when the victims are discovered, insufficiently dressed for the frigid weather, shoeless, with violent injuries, including a horrible skull fracture, a leg torn away, and a tongue ripped out. With expert analysis of the remaining evidence, Eichar tries to answer why the hikers, seven men and two women, would go out into the bitter cold without warm clothing to meet certain death; curious, too, is that the contents of the tent were intact. Possible causes for the panic, according to Eichar and officials, are: an avalanche; mysterious armed men; even a fatal tiff by the males over the women. As the elements of this complicated tangle are compiled, the final wrap-up of the mountain tragedy is overwhelming, befitting a case defying explanation. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

A Junior Library Guild Selection

"Dead Mountain reads like a mystery, with flashback chapters that lead up to the last known details of the ill-fated adventure. Author Eichar is a documentary filmmaker who fell into the 50-year-old mystery. Determined to unravel the clues, he takes a winter hike into the same mountains. His research leads him to sort through the classic explanations-avalanche, attack by the local Mansi people, high winds, armed men, weapons testing, and even aliens. Punctuated with primary source documents, readers will be riveted to the final conclusion of the true story of the Dyatlov Pass incident."
School Library Journal

"An American documentary filmmaker drops into the well of one of Soviet Russia's greatest mysteries. . . . A sad tale of tragedy and investigatory enigmas from the wilds of Soviet Union."
-Kirkus Reviews

"Dead Mountain piques your curiosity from start to finish as the details of these nine young and vibrant hikers unfold to explain their brave fight for survival in some of the harshest conditions imaginable. "
-Malibu Magazine

"Five Stars...The best investigation on [The Dyatlov Pass Incident] that I have ever read."
-Mysterious Universe podcast

"Readers will appreciate the drama and poignancy of Eichar's solid depiction of this truly eerie and enduring mystery."
-Library Journal

"The Dyatlov Pass incident is virtually unknown outside Russia, but in that country, it's been a much-discussed mystery for decades. In 1959, nine Russian university students disappeared on a hiking expedition in the Ural Mountains. A rescue team found their bodies weeks later, nearly a mile from their campsite, partially clothed, shoeless, three of them having died from injuries that indicated a physical confrontation. What happened here? There have been a lot of theories, ranging from misadventure to government conspiracy to freak weather to extraterrestrials, but no one has managed to get to the truth. Drawing on interviews with people who knew the hikers (and with the lone survivor of the expedition, who'd had to turn back due to illness), Russian case documents, and the hikers' own diaries, Eichar, an American documentarian, re-creates the ill-fated expedition and the investigation that followed. The author's explanation of what happened on Dead Mountain is necessarily speculative, but it has the advantage of answering most of the long-standing questions while being intuitively plausible. A gripping book, at least as dramatic as Krakauer's Into Thin Air (1997). "
-Booklist

"The mystery of the bizarre deaths of elite Russian hikers in a 1959 tragedy on a deadly Ural mountain is the subject of Eichar's extensive investigation. Eichar, a film director and producer, tries to make sense of the puzzling tale of the dead students from Ural Polytechnic University; he sets off to interview the hikers' relatives, investigators, and even a lone survivor. Following the search party's retrievals of the bodies, the questions deepen when the victims are discovered, insufficiently dressed for the frigid weather, shoeless, with violent injuries, including a horrible skull fracture, a leg torn away, and a tongue ripped out. With expert analysis of the remaining evidence, Eichar tries to answer why the hikers, seven men and two women, would go out into the bitter cold without warm clothing to meet certain death; curious, too, is that the contents of the tent were intact. Possible causes for the panic, according to Eichar and officials, are: an avalanche; mysterious armed men; even a fatal tiff by the males over the women. As the elements of this complicated tangle are compiled, the final wrap-up of the mountain tragedy is overwhelming, befitting a case defying explanation."
-Publishers Weekly

"They say the best stories, the most compelling ones, are the ones based in truth that is so strange that you think it must be fiction. . . . Eichar has engaged in a Sherlock Holmes-style process of elimination investigation to what could have happened to the hikers. . . . [A] true life mystery, finally solved."
-National Geographic Weekend

A "Best of L.A." pick- Los Angeles Magazine

From the Publisher

11/01/2013
In 1959, nine young Russians set off on a doomed ski trip in the wintry Ural Mountains, never to return. Eichar, a television documentary producer, investigates the mysterious events leading to the untimely deaths of these experienced outdoor adventurers, whose frozen bodies were found later by search parties, some with severe injuries and one lacking a tongue. The author ably pieces together a detailed chronicle of this haunting incident, using official case files, interviews, journals, and other evidence. Through his research into the many bizarre and seemingly unexplainable aspects of the tragedy, he attempts to rule out previously suggested causes such as an avalanche, an attack by a native tribe, Soviet weapons testing, and even aliens. While recreational readers will appreciate the drama and poignancy of Eichar's solid depiction of this truly eerie and enduring mystery, pickier researchers may question the lack of bibliography or notes to indicate exact sources, which makes the accuracy of his re-creation of certain events difficult to judge. VERDICT Best suited to fans of outdoor adventure or survival tales or to general nonfiction readers who appreciate the allure of an engrossing real-life enigma. Readers may also want to consider Keith McCloskey's Mountain of the Dead: The Dyatlov Pass Incident, published last month (but which was not seen by this reviewer).—Ingrid Levin, Salve Regina Univ. Lib., Newport, RI

Library Journal

2013-10-24
An American documentary filmmaker drops into the well of one of Soviet Russia's greatest mysteries. Eichar, who has shot everything from short documentaries to TV pilots, applies a documentarian's eye to this thorough but inconclusive investigation into one of the East's most controversial tragedies. "The Dyatlov Pass Incident" is quite famous in some circles, especially in Russia and the Baltics, but little-known outside the former Iron Curtain. In 1959, nine young hikers suddenly disappeared in the northern Ural Mountains. When the group was finally found, six had died of exposure, while three were found to have traumatic, blunt-force injuries. One girl was missing her tongue. None were fully dressed, as if they had fled suddenly in the dead of night. It was a gruesome scene, made more so by a flood of conspiracy theories. Were they murdered by the military after witnessing some kind of secret test? Was it UFOs or just an avalanche? The final report by investigators, which is murky at best, blames "an unknown compelling force." Eichar marries the short story of the students' lives with the procedural tale of the official investigation and then integrates his own amateur investigation. In an interesting twist, the author managed to track down Yuri Yudin, the sole survivor of the expedition, who had turned back due to his rheumatism, saving his life. Yudin, who passed away earlier this year, was mischievous with the serious young scholar: "Do you not have mysteries in your own country that are unsolved?"; "Which picture do you want to paint? The one rooted in the Revolution, or that of the Iron Curtain?" The author deftly explores theories common and uncommon, the most off-putting being an infrasonic wave known to cause hallucinations and disorientation. It's not a revelatory portrait of the incident, but for Western readers, it's a well-told and accurate whodunit. A sad tale of tragedy and investigatory enigmas from the wilds of Soviet Union.

Kirkus Reviews