Infrasonic waves, huh? Very interesting to hear about fantastical natural phenomenon. I was rooting for aliens but I like that it ended with explainable science.

This wasn't the first time I had heard of the Dyatlov pass incident, but I didn't know much so I was very interested to read this book. And it was a really great book! Well-researched, well-written. Not too long so I was able to read it quickly. Also liked having all of the pictures to connect me with the story.
Goes through multiple theories and what makes some more improbably than others. The theory that he lands on of why the hikers abandoned their tent that night makes complete sense to me (I won't spoil it).

Doesn't quite live up to its own mystery, though the proposed cause of the incident we arrive to at the end is very interesting and compelling. A fun diversion

All the spoilers ahead.

This is a well-researched, well-written account of the Dyatlov pass incident, which offers an expectedly conclusive ending theory about a Kármán vortex street phenomenon creating infrasound that physically and psychologically damages the hikers enough to send them running hundreds of yards and more from their only shelter. An "unknown compelling force" indeed. It's believable, in as much as I understand the science, but just barely.

So to see how well this theory has been received by all the Dyatlov Pass incident aficionados out there, I grabbed my phone as soon as I finished and quickly discovered that Russia had reopened the case in 2019/2020 and had issued an "official" cause. I do hope that Eichar will someday add an update to cover this because I'd like to know what he thinks.

But in lieu of that, I wound up landing on Doug Preston's excellent New Yorker article that succinctly summarizes everything, Eichar's theory included, and generally sticks with the avalanche theory despite its obvious drawbacks (little evidence in 1959, rare if impossible due to low slopes in this area). It's basically a slab avalanche, potentially caused by the way the hikers dug into the snow to create a flat tent site, so a relatively limited amount of heavy snow fell on the tent-not enough to blow them down the mountainside or even upset the tent poles, but enough to crush the tent and largely bury them, with just enough room to get out.

While this theory is imperfect too, it adds an interesting element: That the tent itself was not adequate shelter. You assume some horrible thing must have been happening near or inside the tent that was so frightening that they just ran for their lives without boots or proper gear. But it wasn't just fear driving them to leave quickly, it was also that the tent was no longer a viable shelter. If they were crushed in by snow, and afraid to stay because they feared a larger avalanche (a sure death sentence) they'd have no choice but to leave quickly without even trying to spend the long time it would take to dig out their shoes, sleeping bags or extra clothes. Afterward, they executed the soundest plan possible to keep them alive until they could theoretically return to the tent site (escape to safety and protection in the tree line, start a fire, build a snow cave) but their fates were already sealed when they left their tent. Ironically, if they hadn't followed protocol they may have stayed alive by digging out the tent and reassembling it.

Whatever the validity of any of these compelling forces, what Eichar does particularly well in his last chapter, and before the Russians offered any of this in their investigation, is explain the hikers' final hours and how they might have died where they did in the various states they were in. The most mysterious elements of the case are actually fairly simple to explain when you consider the increasingly desperate steps anyone might take to keep themselves alive alongside the rapid onset of the effects of hypothermia. But this careful explanation does take a compelling, weird and seemingly unsolvable mystery and turn it into just a very sad series of events.

For someone like me, who generally believes most conspiracy theories are just too complicated to be real, this rings true. Yes, there are people up there in the highest echelons of government, business and society pulling strings, but there are also just shit circumstances, mistakes and bad luck and those elements are much more likely to exist in a situation where you're hiking a sparsely studied "dead mountain" in the middle of winter.

I came across this book and the events it described mostly by accident- the audiobook was recommended to me on audible. I looked up the book and saw some reviews mentioning yeti aliens, and I was intrigued enough to check out a podcast about the Dyatlov pass incident. That piqued my interest enough to buy this book after all.

The book is told by alternating between three time periods - the one experienced by the hikers, the one experienced by the search party and investigators and then the time period of the book’s author. While this structure makes sense, it didn’t always gel with me. And overall I found him pretty insufferable (he’s *very* American) but your mileage may vary. I’m going to read another book on this topic, this time by a Russian author.

With unsolved mysteries, there’s always an odd feeling left behind. Because we just don’t know why the group of hikers died - and we’ll probably never know. All we have is theories, some more plausible than others.

Very strange book.

The parts that are actually about the Dyatlov Pass Incident are compelling, well-written, rich of photographies taken by the hiking party and the rescuers. By the time I got to the end of their journey, I felt like I had begun to truly know these young people and I found myself crying over their tragic fate.

That said, the sections where the author talks about his "investigative" trips to Russia are BAD. Why he operates under the delusion that the reader would care about the minutiae of his own life, I do not know, but beyond that - his attitude towards Russian people is frankly appalling. He's rude, disrespectful and condescending to everyone he meets, makes subservient/drunken/irrational caricatures out of them all, and generally beheaves so annoyingly that by mid-book I was actively rooting for something unpleasant to happen to him.

If all the parts where the author talks about himself and what he's planning on having for dinner (and how he uses Valium, and what he thinks about the climate in Southern California, and how he didn't actually bother to have someone translate the information his Russian contact had sent him) had been taken out of the book, my rating would be 4.5/5.

Where extreme hiking and modern history meets the X-Files. Gripping account of a filmmaker's mission to discover the truth behind the mysterious deaths of nine experienced hikers on Siberia's Dead mountain in 1959.

Nicely balanced with accounts of the hikers' preparations, the search and rescue mission that followed their disappearance, and the author's trip to Russia to meet some of the key figures in the investigation.

Very well written, good page turner, and fascinating science that offers the solution. Recommended.