What is documented

1. The tent stood on the east-north-east slope of Kholat Syakhl about 150 m below the crest of the spur, on a platform levelled out of the snow with the skis laid under the floor, pitched "very firmly, by all the rules, with the strong wind in mind". The entrance faced south, the ridge was held on ski poles, and the guy lines ran to poles and a spare pair of skis.Sheet 2 (Tempalov's discovery protocol, 28 Feb); 70 (Maslennikov); 89 (Chernyshov); 314 (Lebedev); 366 (Brusnitsyn)
2. When found on 26 February the entrance end stood on its pole with its guy lines intact; the northern guy lines were torn away, the far ridge had sunk, and that half lay under snow. Slobtsov, who found it, measured the snow on the tent at 15 to 20 cm, "blown on, hard". Maslennikov: "there was not much snow, only what the February blizzards had drifted in".Sheets 298 (Slobtsov); 70 (Maslennikov); 310 (Tempalov); 366 (Brusnitsyn: no pole was ever under the north ridge)
3. Ski poles and a spare pair of skis still stood upright in the snow around the tent; an ice axe was stuck by the entrance; a Chinese flashlight lay on the canvas of the tent with 5 to 10 cm of snow under it and none on top, and it lit when Slobtsov switched it on.Sheets 298–299 (Slobtsov); 70 (Maslennikov); 214 (Atmanaki)
4. The forensic criminalist Churkina found three knife cuts in the downhill (right) slope of the canvas, 32, about 89 and about 42 cm long, and from the direction of the thread damage concluded they were made from inside. Everything else was tearing.Sheets 303–304 (Act 199, 16 Apr 1959)
5. Inside were nine backpacks, eight pairs of boots and three and a half pairs of felt boots, all the warm outer clothing, the stove packed in its case and unlit, food for two or three days, cut slices of loin with a bitten rind, and a flask of alcohol. Nothing of value was missing. The group appeared to be "in the last stage of changing clothes and preparing for the night".Sheets 2; 70; 160 (radiogram 28 Feb); 311 (Tempalov); 314–315 (Lebedev); 337 (Sogrin: the stove was not used); 367 (Brusnitsyn); 385 (Ivanov)
6. Small items lay a short way downwind of the tent: slippers, socks, ski caps, Dyatlov's fur jacket and a storm jacket; a roll of film about 15 m below; a ski pole found inside cut into several pieces with a clean knife cut; a urine trace near the tent.Sheets 70; 215 (Atmanaki); 299 (Slobtsov); 311 (Tempalov); 315 (Lebedev); 367 (Brusnitsyn)
7. No witness who saw the tent, the slope or the snow reported any sign of an avalanche, and one said so in terms: Sogrin, at the site on 4 March, "here there was neither an avalanche nor a snow collapse"; Akselrod, "the slope as such played no role in their death". The only "buried by snow" phrase in the file is a radiogram sent on the first evening before the tent was inspected. Ivanov's closing resolution does not contain the word.Sheets 335 and 324 (Sogrin, Akselrod, 24 Apr); 149 (radiogram, 27 Feb 17:45); 384–387

1. Tracks began 15 to 40 m below the tent and ran down toward the valley in parallel chains "close to one another, as if the people walked holding on to each other"; two groups of tracks (six or seven pairs and two pairs about 20 m to the left) merged after 30 to 40 m. Eight pairs were counted with certainty; the ninth was disputed. Prosecutor Tempalov: "the tracks showed me that the people walked at a normal pace down the mountain."Sheets 90 (Chernyshov); 215 (Atmanaki); 297 (Maslennikov); 299 (Slobtsov); 312 (Tempalov)
2. The prints stood up as raised columns because compressed snow under a foot resists the wind; toes were imprinted (bare feet or one cotton sock); one track was made by a boot. They were traceable for 500 m to a kilometre and were lost where the snow deepened near the forest. No other human or animal tracks were found, and there was no sign of a struggle.Sheets 90–91 (Chernyshov); 160 (radiogram 28 Feb); 386 (Ivanov)
3. A second flashlight, switched on with its battery exhausted, lay on the slope below the tent (about 100 m by Atmanaki, 450 m by the radiogram of 7 March).Sheets 191; 220

1. Doroshenko and Krivonischenko lay one metre from a fire under a cedar at the forest edge, 1.5 km from the tent, stripped to shirts and underwear. The fire had burned one and a half to three hours; cedar branches 8 cm thick had burned through. Around the fire lay socks, a checked shirt with 8 roubles in it, a handkerchief and cut-off pieces of clothing.Sheets 3–4 (scene protocol, 27 Feb); 68 (Maslennikov); 216 (Atmanaki); 333 (Sogrin); 366 (Brusnitsyn)
2. The cedar's dry lower branches were broken off as high as a person can reach and, on the side facing the tent, up to 4 or 5 m, so that "the people seem to have made something like a window" toward the slope they had come from. Twenty or so young firs had been cut with a knife within 20 m, most of them left unused.Sheets 68–69; 91; 216–217; 366
3. Dyatlov, Slobodin and Kolmogorova lay on a straight line from the fire toward the tent at roughly 300, 480 and 630 m from the fire, heads toward the tent, the two farthest face down "in a pose of crawling toward the tent". Slobodin had 7 to 8 cm of half-ice under his knees and chest, showing he had lived some time in that position; his cap was still on his head.Sheets 4–5; 69–72 (Maslennikov); 216 (Atmanaki); 322 (Akselrod); 386
4. Kolmogorova's body was under about 10 cm of snow, Slobodin's under 12 to 35 cm; Dyatlov's was visible.Sheets 34–35 (Bardin and Shuleshko); 71; 322

1. On 4 to 6 May the last four were found in the bed of a stream 50 to 75 m from the cedar, in the water, under 2 to 2.5 m of snow by the protocol and 4 to 4.5 m by Ivanov, three lying with heads downstream and Dubinina against the current. Six metres upstream a flooring of fourteen fir tops and a birch top had been laid on the snow with clothing on it. Krivonischenko's knife, which had cut the firs at the fire, lay near the bodies.Sheets 341–343 (protocol, 6 May); 386
2. Thibeaux-Brignolle and Zolotaryov were well dressed; Dubinina's fur jacket and cap were on Zolotaryov; her bare foot was wrapped in a piece of burned wool cardigan; clothing cut from the two dead at the cedar was on and around the four. Thibeaux wore two watches, stopped at 8:14 and 8:39; Slobodin's at 8:45; Dyatlov's at 5:31.Sheets 341–343; 355 (Dubinina act); 386

1. The group cached food for the return journey at the labaz, a store they built in the valley, on the morning of 1 February and set off at 15:00; the last frames on the cameras show the platform being dug, which Ivanov dated from the exposure to "about 17:00"; a joke wall newspaper the group wrote, "Evening Otorten", named after the mountain they were heading for, is dated 1 February; no record or photograph exists after that.Sheets 31; 33 (Bardin and Shuleshko); 73; 385
2. The file contains no weather-station reading for 1 to 2 February. Ivanov wrote "a low temperature of the order of 25 to 30 degrees" and "strong wind usual in this area"; the search report says the pass usually blows at 15 to 20 m/s and up to 36; three local witnesses describe exceptional winds in the first days of February.Sheets 39; 41, 48, 50 (Dryahlyh, Popov, Pashin); 385
3. Every first-hand sighting of a light phenomenon in the file is dated 17 February or 31 March 1959. Every statement about a light on 1 February is hearsay or an unanswered query.Sheets 167–168 (radiograms); 211–212, 227, 260, 264–267, 291, 344; 273–274, 270–272, 275–281 (relatives, hearsay)
4. The closing resolution of 28 May 1959: "considering the absence on all the bodies of external bodily injuries and of signs of a struggle, the presence of all the group's valuables, and the forensic conclusions … the cause of the hikers' death was an elemental force which the hikers were not in a position to overcome."Sheet 387