Free Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident by Donnie Eichar Page A

romance all its own. Yet at the same time, domestic tourists were providing a useful service in helping to map out uncharted regions of the country, particularly Siberia and the Ural Mountains.
    Fraternity, equality and respect were considered the reigning values among Russian hikers. “If someone was not friendly or did not work well within the group, they were not invited back,” Yudin said. Furthermore, women were on equal footing with men. In his view, unlike the culture then prevalent in the United States—where women’s careers hadn’t advanced much beyond their prewar positions as telephone operators, schoolteachers and secretaries—there were fewer limitations on women of the Soviet Union at the time.This equality was reflected in the Dyatlov group, where Zina and Lyuda were considered as capable as their male counterparts. “Within the team there was no gender. We were all equal in everything. We had a strict code of ethics and discipline. At that time, the most important goal was the spirit of being together as a team, and overcoming the distance.”
    Given Yudin’s rheumatism and the accompanying arthritic symptoms that had plagued him since childhood, his decision to join the Dyatlov group may have seemed counterintuitive. But the challenges that came with hiking and mountaineering allowed him to better cope with his chronic condition, both mentally and physically. The very illness that had driven him to the sport, and had potentially put Yudin in harm’s way, had also, in his words, become his “salvation.”
    To my surprise, talk of his illness led Yudin to open up about his poor childhood, which was spent in the town of Emelyashevka, a half-day’s drive outside of Yekaterinburg. During the summers he had walked barefoot outside so that he could preserve his only pair of shoes for the winter months. In instances where he had to wear shoes at his destination, he would tie them to a stick and carry them over his shoulder as he walked. During the Second World War, food rations were the norm. “I tried sugar for the first time when I came to school,” he told me. “I was seven and it was wartime, and nobody had anything. The government was giving us a loaf of bread and a teaspoon of sugar, which we’d spread out on the bread.”
    Yudin’s much older brother served as an aviator during the war and survived. Their father also served, but was not so lucky. His death left Yudin’s illiterate mother to care for him and his older sister. It was a difficult time, Yudin said, but conditions improved for his family when his brother returned from the war and was able to segue into a teaching career.
    The post-Stalinist period came with new opportunities for Yudin’s generation, including wider access to education. After the Dyatlov tragedy, Yudin went on to earn his degree in geology from UPI. After attending graduate school for economics, he moved north to Solikamsk, a mining city in the Perm district, where he settled into a career as an engineer in a magnesium plant. Yudin worked at the same Solikamsk plant his entire life before his retirement from factory life in the late ’90s.
    After the tragedy, Yudin’s rheumatism abated enough for him to continue enjoying the outdoors. Yudin has retained his love of hiking and has continued to organize trips into the Urals. “It’s a university tradition which carries on,” he said proudly. “Hiking has always been my hobby. And of course what happened in 1959 was a horrible thing, but it’s what I do.”
    Talk turned to the upcoming expedition, which was still over a week away. Kuntsevich interrupted our conversation to inform us that weather conditions in the northern Ural Mountains were going to be very unpredictable. Sudden blizzards and violent winds were a real threat, and a clear sky could lull one into a false sense of security. And once you’re above the tree line, there’s no place to seek cover. I nodded my understanding that I was aware of the