Lore - Episode 38: The Mountain

Episode Date: July 11, 2016

Humans have always wandered off into unexplored territory. It’s a key part of our identity to leave safety behind in pursuit of adventure. Those journeys, though, don’t always end in success. In fact, sometimes they end in horrible tragedy. * * * Official Lore Website Access premium content!: https://www.lorepodcast.com/support

In February of 2010, restoration specialists were trying to preserve the hut used by Ernest Shackleton and his team during their Nimrod expedition a century ago when they found something beneath the floorboards. Keep in mind, Shackleton is something of a legend. Born in Ireland in 1874, raised in London and exploring arctic regions by his 25th birthday, this man was about as tough as they come. He was a naval officer, a real-life explorer, a best-selling author, and even had the honor of being knighted by a king.

I can't think of anyone more interesting to invite to a party. So when restoration began on the Nimrod base camp hut in 2010, there was a sense of awe. It was the structure that had once played host to impossible dreams and a spirit that few today are willing to embrace. That little hut was a refuge against a hostile environment, and it was also, apparently, the hiding place for a treasure buried by Shackleton himself. It wasn't gold or silver, though. It wasn't a relic or some piece of history.

No, beneath those bare floorboards, restorationists found something else. Three cases of Scottish whiskey. And this whiskey, trapped in the permafrost for a century, was insanely valuable. Not just because of its age, and not just because of the opportunity it offered to explore a rare lost blend of Scotch. This whiskey was valuable, you see, because it offered the chance to taste the liquid that fueled the legend. We're obsessed with those who venture out into the wild.

We resonate with those who risk their lives. And while the successful ones often live on as legends in their own right, it's the ones that fail and often stick with us the longest. For some people, nothing is more frightening than when the natural world reaches out and crushes our best laid plans. I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is Lore. When Sir John Franklin set sail from England in 1845, it was his fourth expedition into the Arctic Circle.

For years, nations had been looking for the mythical Northwest Passage, a route from the Atlantic to the Pacific that didn't require sailing south to the tip of South America before heading back north. Franklin and his team were never seen again. In some ways, it shouldn't have surprised anyone. After all, the expedition set sail in two ships, one called the Terror, the other named after the Greek god of darkness and chaos, Erebus. They were practically begging for tragedy.

It wasn't until a decade later when another explorer, John Ray, learned of the expedition's fate. Trapped in the ice, the crew had made their escape on foot. Other than lack of food was their undoing, and some believed the party succumbed to cannibalism before the last of them perished. Nevertheless, Franklin and his crew have gone down in history as heroes. History has a long love affair with tragedy. Maybe it's the haunting nature of these lost expeditions and journeys gone wrong that seem

to elevate them in popular culture. Maybe it's our obsession with anything that has a passing resemblance to an Indiana Jones movie. Or maybe it's just the simple fact that there are so many of them to talk about. Norwegian explorer Rold Amundsen was the expedition leader for the team that beat Robert Scott to the South Pole in 1911. He and his team returned from their journey as heroes, and while he participated in more adventures, it was the South Pole that earned him his place in history.

Nearly two decades later, in 1928, an expedition to the North Pole crashed in the ice and vanished. Amundsen, 55 years old at the time, climbed into a rescue plane and headed north to find them. Apparently, you can take the explorer out of the wild, but you can't take the wild out of the explorer. Amundsen was never seen again. Percy Fawcett was an explorer and archaeologist from England who spent much of his professional

life in the jungles of Brazil and South America. He had performed tasks for the Royal Geographical Society and served as a member of the British Secret Service for a time. Fawcett even formed a close friendship with popular author H. Ryder Haggard, who wrote the equivalent of Indiana Jones novels for late 19th century readers. If you've ever read or seen the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, the character of Alan Quartermain was a Haggard creation. Maybe it was that friendship that filled Fawcett's head with visions of cities of gold and adventure.

In 1925, he managed to raise enough funds to set off for Brazil with his oldest son Jack and one of Jack's close friends. Together, they planned to locate a lost city that Fawcett had named Z. It was supposed to be the real-life location of the legendary city of El Dorado. There are a lot of theories about what happened. Some say that the explorer and his partners were all killed by natives of the region. Others say that they set up a commune in the jungle and lived out the rest of their lives there.

There are even stories that say the end was much less exciting, that Fawcett and the others just walked into the jungle and vanished. In 1804, Alexander Hamilton entered a duel with United States Vice President Aaron Burr. Hamilton's aim was off, but Burr's wasn't. As a result, Hamilton died from his wounds the following day. Burr lived a long life after the duel, but suffered through the mysterious disappearance of his daughter Theodosia. In 1812, she boarded a ship that was meant to carry her away from South Carolina, where

her husband was the governor, to see her father in New York. An incredibly fast schooner known as the Patriot left the Georgetown harbor in December of that year, and it 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's 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. If there was ever a textbook example of whiteout conditions, the night of February 2nd, 1959 would have been it. The team of ten were huddled together inside their tent 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 was comprised of nine college students from Ural Polytechnical Institute, all of whom were led by their instructor Igor. Their journey had actually begun on January 27th, a week prior, in the northern Russian

village of Vivyazhe, 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 Mansya, sometimes called the Vogels. Centuries ago, they ruled the northern lands, even fighting against the Russians until they were finally assimilated in the 13th century.

Today, most Mansya live in Moscow or other large cities, and there are very few who remain in their northern homelands. And these travelers 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-again journey, with the goal of reaching Mount Atorten within a week and then returning to Vivyazhe by February 12th. If they fail to check in, Igor had told friends, start to worry.

It was going to be a dangerous expedition, without a doubt. The train 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 31st. The next day, they started their climb. But 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 Mount Atorten. By the end of the day, on February 2nd, Igor and the others realized they were more than a mile off their 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 Kulit Shekel. 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 the climb back up the next day, so the team decided to ride out the storm where they stood. Exposed to the wind on the bare mountain, with temperatures as low as negative 25 degrees 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 Mount Atorten from where they stood. 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 making the most of their mistakes. They set up their tent, unpacked 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 all of them. All we have left now are corpses. 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 towards something odd, something that doesn't fit with the 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 2nd had been cold and snowy, but when the search party finally located the hikers camp on February 26th, 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, and there was evidence that it had been torn in half from the outside. Scattered in the snow around the remnants of the tent, the search party found the items that had belonged to the hikers, items that included 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 a nearby tree had been broken or snapped off as high as five meters above the snow. Either someone had tried to climb them, or something else had broken them. Some have suggested that something very tall had chased the hikers into the trees, breaking the limbs off as it entered, or exited the woods. Three more bodies were found in the snow on the slope between the torrent 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 past to find the remaining four. On May 4th of 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 simply bit it off in a moment of panic. 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 amount of force required to

create such injuries was on the same level as a high-speed automobile 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 Monsia people. According to him, the injuries could not have been caused by other humans because the force of the blows had simply been too powerful. In other words, the injuries that these hikers suffered were unexplainable, inhuman, 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. The 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 those plans. The unknown, though, can leave us as vulnerable as hikers in a blizzard exposed and unprepared.

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 that dangerous unknown. Our world seems to be full of it. Loose ends have a way of making people feel uneasy, though. 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. It's ironic, I know, but true. Decades after the tragedy, 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 sub-zero blizzard. We don't know what caused the severe trauma to their heads and chests. We don't know, well, what we don't know vastly outnumbers what we do, 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 of 1959, all of the related documents were packed 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 Monsia 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're killed by native tribesmen 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 anyway. But in the end, the answers might very well be found among the Monsia after all. Interestingly, the Monsia name for Mount Atortan, the mountain where they had been hiking toward but never reached, is translated, Don't Go There. Were the Monsia 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 Kholotsiakl, where the hikers camped and died that final night?

That happens to be a Monsia name as well, given to the mountain many centuries, perhaps even millennia ago. It literally means mountain of the dead. This episode of lore was researched, written, and produced by me, Aaron Mankey. There is much more than a podcast, there's a book series in bookstores around the country and online, and the second season of the Amazon Prime television show was recently released. Check them both out if you want more lore in your life. I also make two other podcasts, Aaron Mankey's Cabinet of Curiosities, and Unobscured, and

I think you'd enjoy both. Each one explores other areas of our dark history, ranging from bite-sized episodes to season-long dives into a single topic. You can learn about both of those shows and everything else going on all over in one central place, theworldoflore.com slash now. And you can also follow the show on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Just search for Lore Podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. When you do, say hi.

I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening. I'll see you in the next one.