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I think most people who look deeply into the case get caught up in crazy conspiracy theories and get lost in the forest. I thought the snow slab/mini avalanche

I think most people who look deeply into the case get caught up in crazy conspiracy theories and get lost in the forest. I thought the snow slab/mini avalanche explanation was plausible, fit the circumstances, and didn't require people acting improbably. This is also one of those cases where the actual facts have gotten mixed in with speculation, confusion, and in some cases outright fabrication which makes it harder to study. Sifting through the information to find the ground truth is one of the hardest parts of trying to figure out what happened.

goatlover 6y ago
Thing is that the snow slab wasn't evident 24 days later when the tent was found, the tent poles weren't pushed down, there was a working flashlight on the tent or a snowbank nearby that was undisturbed, and it makes little sense for Igor, Zina and Rustem to climb back up the slope in a weakened state if they knew the tent was inaccessible from tons of frozen snow on top of it. Also, there was nine of them with an unburied snow axe they could have used to dig the tent out rather than walk an hour downslope at night in the rocky, snow drifty, unknown terrain with insufficient clothing to try and survive the night. It's possible the snow slab melted enough to blow or slide away during those 24 days, but then we're making an assumption that it existed in the first place. Which is no different from assuming the wind made a low frequency sound that scared the hikers out of the tent, or fill in whatever missing X caused them to leave the tent. I think there's lots of odd things that go unexplained even if one can think of a reason to leave the tent like a small avalanche. Why were the two Yuri's left to attend a smile fire that they froze around? Why were the four found in the ravine several meters from the alleged snow den? Why did the lead investigator think that a radiation test in the middle of nowhere was necessary? Did he really see burned tree tops? Unfortunately, the pictures that are available today are very incomplete, including pictures of the tent, footsteps, bodies where they were found, etc. Which raises another question. Do we have all the papers and photos from the original case?
- TwoBit 6y ago
  > it makes little sense for Igor, Zina and Rustem to climb back up the slope in a weakened state if they knew the tent was inaccessible from tons of frozen snow on top of it. That's a speculative statement. "it makes little sense" as an argument is weak on its own, but is 10x weaker when it's based on supposition you just invented regarding the state of their tent and their somehow knowing that state well.
  - goatlover 6y ago
    The state of their tent was such that they abandoned it for the forest below in the snow slab theory. But yes, any motivation from that night is speculative, including the one where Igor decides to pitch the tent on the slope because he doesn't want to lose progress the next day, or that he wanted the group to challenge themselves.

goatlover 6y ago

Thing is that the snow slab wasn't evident 24 days later when the tent was found, the tent poles weren't pushed down, there was a working flashlight on the tent or a snowbank nearby that was undisturbed, and it makes little sense for Igor, Zina and Rustem to climb back up the slope in a weakened state if they knew the tent was inaccessible from tons of frozen snow on top of it. Also, there was nine of them with an unburied snow axe they could have used to dig the tent out rather than walk an hour downslope at night in the rocky, snow drifty, unknown terrain with insufficient clothing to try and survive the night. It's possible the snow slab melted enough to blow or slide away during those 24 days, but then we're making an assumption that it existed in the first place. Which is no different from assuming the wind made a low frequency sound that scared the hikers out of the tent, or fill in whatever missing X caused them to leave the tent. I think there's lots of odd things that go unexplained even if one can think of a reason to leave the tent like a small avalanche. Why were the two Yuri's left to attend a smile fire that they froze around? Why were the four found in the ravine several meters from the alleged snow den? Why did the lead investigator think that a radiation test in the middle of nowhere was necessary? Did he really see burned tree tops? Unfortunately, the pictures that are available today are very incomplete, including pictures of the tent, footsteps, bodies where they were found, etc. Which raises another question. Do we have all the papers and photos from the original case?

TwoBit 6y ago
> it makes little sense for Igor, Zina and Rustem to climb back up the slope in a weakened state if they knew the tent was inaccessible from tons of frozen snow on top of it. That's a speculative statement. "it makes little sense" as an argument is weak on its own, but is 10x weaker when it's based on supposition you just invented regarding the state of their tent and their somehow knowing that state well.
- goatlover 6y ago
  The state of their tent was such that they abandoned it for the forest below in the snow slab theory. But yes, any motivation from that night is speculative, including the one where Igor decides to pitch the tent on the slope because he doesn't want to lose progress the next day, or that he wanted the group to challenge themselves.