Original subtitles

(wind whistling)

I feel like we're driving to the end of the earth.

Libecki: If you have any skin exposure,

you will get frostbite.

I mean, this is colder than antarctica.

Right.

Gates: All we know is that 60 years ago, they left that tent.

We know that there was madness, chaos, and murder.

It just makes no sense.

And the more you read, the weirder it gets.

I've never been anywhere colder

or more remote from civilization than this.

They did find traces of radiation on their clothes.

Oh, oh, oh! We just lost a sled!

February 15th. This is a document that shouldn't exist.

Two of them were missing their eyes,

and one of them was missing her tongue.

Libecki: This is madness, man. They were barefoot.

-Someone help me! -Are you okay?!

♪

♪

it is one of the greatest unsolved mysteries

of modern times, but be warned --

it's also one of the scariest true stories ever told.

This is the terrifying tale of the dyatlov pass incident.

The year is 1959, the height of the cold war

and the dead of winter, when nine soviet university students

embark on a hiking excursion into the frozen wilderness

of siberia, and never return.

A search party is dispatched,

and discovers their abandoned campsite on the slopes

of a mysterious peak known as dead mountain.

The bodies of the hikers are found scattered

in the surrounding wilderness.

Some have broken bones.

One is missing her eyes and tongue.

Two have high levels of radiation on their clothes.

Strangest of all, none of the hikers are wearing

their cold-weather gear -- all of it left behind

neatly organized in their tent,

which appears to have been sliced open from the inside.

The case inspires wild theories

ranging from top-secret weapons testing,

a murder cover-up, or even ufos or attack by the yeti.

Investigators list the official cause of death

as an unknown compelling force.

But to this day, no one knows how the hikers died or why.

Now, on the 60th anniversary of the hikers' deaths,

an american survivalist thinks he's finally found the answer,

while one of the world's leading experts on the event

believes she can prove this was no accident.

Together, they're mounting an expedition for answers.

And I aim to join them.

This will be the most remote journey

in "expedition unknown" history.

It will not be easy, and it will not be warm.

But when it's over, we may finally solve

the coldest case of all time.

My name is josh gates...

Aye, yai yai!

...Explorer, adventurer...

Oh, my god!

...And a guy who ends up in some very strange situations.

I gotta find an off-ramp around here. Ya!

With a degree in archaeology

and a passion for the unexplained,

I travel to the ends of the earth,

investigating the greatest legends in history.

Okay, let's punch it.

This is "expedition unknown."

-- captions by vitac -- www.Vitac.Com

captions paid for by discovery communications

♪

my investigation begins where the hikers began.

It takes two long flights

just to get to the remote city of yekaterinburg, russia.

This is the western gateway to the vast northern region

of siberia, which encompasses four-and-a-half million

square miles from the ural mountains

across to the pacific ocean.

♪

many of us in the west have probably never heard

of this place, and there's a reason for that.

♪

prior to 1990, yekaterinburg

was actually closed to foreigners altogether

because this was the center of the soviet union's

military industrial complex during the cold war --

a term that takes on a whole new significance

when it is negative-10 degrees out.

Good lord! Aye, yai yai!

(shivering)

♪

it may be cold outside,

but that doesn't mean this is some provincial outpost.

The tsar peter the great founded the city in 1723.

And the last emperor of russia, and the entire romanov dynasty,

came to a bloody end when they were assassinated here in 1918.

Today, though, this is russia's fourth-largest city,

home to a population about the size of dallas, texas.

Believe it or not, this is also the warmest place

we'll be visiting on this expedition.

Which means I'm going to need to upgrade my headgear.

Oh, my lord. Look at this.

Russians take their hats seriously.

You would, too, if you lived in your freezer.

For a week in the wilderness,

I need to choose and choose wisely.

Might be a little much.

What is this? Red fox.

Redd foxx? Ya big dummy!

(man laughs)

it's an old reference, but I do feel good about that joke.

This is like the mad hatter meets "pretty woman."

look at that.

Oh. I'm a cat.

And you're a cougar.

(big cat yowling)

(laughs)

finally, I pick a winner.

Ha! Perfection.

Perfection. It's perfect.

I wanna be clear -- I'm not a believer in, uh, in fur.

Also not a believer in freezing to death,

so I am gonna make an exception here in siberia.

With my head properly covered...

I walk across town to ural state technical university,

where in 1959, a young engineering student

named igor dyatlov

formed a sporting club to tackle an expedition to a frigid

4,000-foot-high mountain known as otorten.

On January 23, 1959, the group left yekaterinburg by train.

Eight days later...

All but one would be dead.

To learn more about the team and their fateful trip,

I go to meet yuri kuntsevich...

Yuri? ...A local historian

who founded the dyatlov foundation

to honor the hikers,

and who has collected critical evidence from their case.

Let's talk about these students.

What sort of people were they?

Interpreter: Some had just graduated.

Some were still students.

They were studying to become engineers and physicists,

but they were basically kids.

In total, there were nine who died --

igor dyatlov, for whom the pass would later be named;

yuri doroshenko; ludmila dubinina;

yuri krivonischenko;

alexander kolevatov; zinaida kolmogorova;

rustem slobodin, nicolai thibeaux-brignolle;

and semyon zolotarev.

A tenth hiker, yuri yudin, turned back early and survived.

So, what were these young hikers doing deep

in the siberian wilderness?

Like many young people, they loved the outdoors.

So they formed a club -- camping, hiking,

cross-country skiing.

They wanted to earn a certificate from the university.

And to do that, they needed to complete what is known

as a class iii trip into the wilderness.

Yuri, when did you first become interested in this story?

I was 12 when the hikers died.

I lived next to the cemetery where most of them were buried.

The whole city was fascinated by the story,

but there was nothing about it in the newspapers

or on the radio.

Either out of embarrassment or, some believe, a cover-up,

the story of the bizarre deaths of these hikers

was largely suppressed by the soviet government.

And the police even tore down leaflets around campus

informing students of the funerals.

When the soviet union fell, many case files were opened.

But many are still missing.

The official inquiry was so hush-hush

that word of the incident didn't leak outside of the soviet union

until there was no more soviet union.

What files do exist reveal an incomplete investigation.

Authorities rather bluntly concluded

that the hikers died of

"a compelling unknown force," and simply closed the case.

Yuri has collected every piece of evidence

he can find in the search for answers.

Are these actual materials from the pass?

Yes. The university insisted

that they had to document their whole journey,

so they all brought cameras and diaries

to prove they made the trip.

This is one of their actual original cameras?

Da, da.

The group brought ten cameras with them,

only half of which were later recovered from the pass.

Investigators successfully developed over 120 pictures

from the expedition -- haunting visual clues

of the students' movements through the wilderness.

More important, though,

were meticulous diaries kept daily by the team.

These are the actual diaries?

Da, da.

Every day, that is, until their last --

February 1, 1959.

So, yuri, you've been, obviously,

studying this case for a very long time.

What's your theory?

What do you think happened to these students?

I don't know for sure.

I think it may have had something to do

with military testing --

maybe some kind of a rocket launch or missile.

A missile? So, what's the missile theory?

Some of suggested that the dyatlov group

was killed by a weapon that detonated in the area,

or that they had witnessed a secret test

they shouldn't have seen and were killed by the authorities.

We now have two related theories --

either that the russian military killed the hikers,

or that a weapon test resulted in their deaths.

Researchers have also proposed

that the hikers could have been murdered

by an escaped prisoner from a remote work camp.

Others suspect the local indigenous people.

And then, there are those who think a natural event

like an avalanche was responsible.

I'm going to investigate all of these theories

and more as I travel to the pass.

Meanwhile, yuri's got something that no one else

investigating the case has --

what could be a secret piece of physical evidence.

I receive something from the visitors to the pass,

and I think it's the key to finding out

what happened to the hikers.

(speaking russian)

my host excuses himself, stepping into another room.

And when he returns, he's holding history in his hands.

What is this?

Gates: I'm in the siberian city of yekaterinburg,

investigating the terrifying mystery of the dyatlov pass.

60 years ago, nine russian hikers froze to death

under circumstances so bizarre

that they've spawned six-decades-worth

of wild theories.

But now, a leading historian on the case

is showing me something I never expected to see --

physical evidence that he believes

can explain the hikers' deaths.

What is this? Interpreter: Some believe

it is part of the fuel tank of a rocket.

It was found not far from the hikers' campsite

at dyatlov pass.

Would it be possible for us to take a small piece to test it?

Yes, absolutely.

It's possible? Yes.

We would love to know more.

Okay. Alright, good.

Yuri allows us to saw off a piece of the mystery metal.

We'll have it tested to see if we can determine its age,

composition, and whether there's any residue of explosives.

If this was from a 1950s soviet rocket, we'll know soon enough.

Josh, I also want to give you a few things

to help you on your journey --

first, all the hikers' photographs.

So these are the photos from the negatives?

Yes, and also this.

A copy of the diaries!

Yes, translated into english.

Their words will guide you to their secrets.

Thank you very much.

Good luck.

Yuri will continue the hunt here in yekaterinburg

for new documents and information in the case,

while I have our first theories to investigate in the field

and vital clues from the students in-hand.

The first leg of their, and now our, trip is by train.

My crew and I prepare our gear for an overnight journey

to the edge of the inhabited world,

where I'm going to link up with two researchers

leading an expedition to the dyatlov pass.

Stone: Okay, everybody. Let's get everything loaded.

I'll tell you something about our film crew --

we have a lot of stuff, a lot of bags, a lot of cases.

Eight, nine, ten, eleven,

twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen.

That's what I'm saying.

Gates: We load our equipment onto the train,

and then climb aboard to find our cabins.

This is me.

Alright. Well, good news is I'm warm.

Bad news is this is a 10-hour train ride.

Here we go.

The train pulls away from the station.

And out the window, civilization doesn't fade --

it drops off a cliff.

♪

safe and warm in my cabin,

I take some time to get to know the members

of the dyatlov expedition through their diaries.

"here we are on the train.

We sang all the songs that we know and learned new ones."

you know, reading their words, it's impossible not to be struck

by the fact that these were kids.

These were college kids,

and their journey took them along these very same rails.

They were too broke to buy tickets for everybody,

so some of them hid under the seats

when the conductor came by.

♪

the train rides through the night,

325 miles north to the remote town of ivdel.

We arrive in the predawn hours, ready to get to work.

Okay, here we go.

17,000 people live here on a ragged frontier.

However, I'm here to meet another visitor like me --

researcher teodora hadjiyska.

Teddy? Josh, so happy to see you!

Her friends call her teddy, and teddy is a hugger.

To warm up, we're going to be doing a lot of hugging.

Yes. Okay, we'll be --

we'll be a lot of of hugging. I'm okay with that.

It's freezing.

She's also the world's foremost expert

on the dyatlov pass incident, having compiled

and translated every known document related to the case

before putting it on the web for the public to analyze.

I've read everything, I think,

that you've written about this case.

Oh, my god. You've done amazing work.

I think you know everything there is

to know about this case.

Nobody knows everything about this case, josh.

I can assure you of that.

Teddy is here as part of an expedition

to the dyatlov pass being led by american survivalist

and explorer mike libecki, who is busy making preparations

further along their route.

I'm here to join them.

Okay, let's pack it up. We got a big drive.

Come on. -Yep.

Our ride into the wilderness is a classic gaz-66 --

a soviet military vehicle first made in 1964.

It seats two in the front

and an entire tv crew in the back,

complete with a mobile fireplace.

The gaz is capable of running in temperatures from 125 degrees

fahrenheit down to 60-below.

Josh, you know how to drive this, right?

Uh, yeah. S-- yes, sure.

Well, the good thing about these old soviet trucks

is they're so user-friendly.

The shifter, for instance, is...

...Behind me, right where you would expect it --

directly behind you.

Okay, so this -- that's probably first.

You think? My best guess, yeah.

Yeah. Let's give it a try.

Oh, my god.

You're a natural.

Hey, look at that! We're moving.

So, teddy, where are we headed?

We're going to a village.

It's called vizhay. Vizhay.

And how far away is it?

It takes about three hours.

Three hours, okay. Well, here we go.

Teddy, when did you first get interested in this story?

I started reading and trying to figure out

what exactly happened, and that was driving me nuts.

The story is -- it's sad, it's tragic, it's macabre --

but there's something really mysterious about it.

And the more you read, the weirder it gets.

Right.

Nobody could be prepared for how weird.

When rescuers arrive on-scene at the dyatlov pass

weeks after the incident, the first thing they discover

is the group's empty tent and cold-weather gear.

Their food and supplies are intact.

Even stranger is the hikers' stove

which, despite an estimated temperature

of 35 degrees below zero

on the night of their disappearance,

was packed away, unassembled.

The day after locating the tent,

the first two bodies are found near a cedar tree.

They're shoeless, dressed only in their underwear.

Over the next several days, more bodies are recovered

in various states of undress with bizarre injuries --

massive chest fractures,

some with their eyes and tongue missing.

It takes months to find all the hikers.

And in the end, investigators

are left with no explanation as to what happened.

How many times have you been to the pass?

I haven't been to the pass yet, josh.

You've never been here? No, I have not.

This expedition is my first chance

to see the site with my own eyes.

And this is the 60th anniversary --

the exact week when they made the trip.

Right.

Do you think that going to the pass

will change your opinion about the case?

Yes. I don't think I'm coming, the same person,

back from the pass.

♪

after three hours, we arrive to meet our expedition's leader,

mike libecki, in a speck of a logging town known as vizhay.

So this is it. Vizhay.

This is vizhay, population...

Not many.

Now, we're about 4,000 miles from a neighborhood

that I recognize.

And mike is absolutely nowhere to be seen.

This is one appointment that I can't afford to miss.

Our lives may be counting on it.

♪

♪

gates: I'm in a soviet military truck in siberia,

entering the logging village of vizhay

where we're meeting mike libecki,

the explorer who's leading our expedition

to the infamous dyatlov pass.

So far, mike is nowhere to be found.

This is vizhay, population...

Not many.

(dog barking)

well, the dogs seem friendly.

♪

the dyatlov hikers passed through vizhay

on January 25, 1959,

eating lunch at a local guest house

with another group of hikers from their university.

They took some pictures together before the other group

left for a different hike and a brighter fate.

This is us? Yeah, josh.

Turn in here. Okay.

We finally locate a small compound

which serves as the staging area for the main leg of our journey.

It's here that we're happy to find expedition guide

and dyatlov investigator, mike libecki.

Hey. Yo, how's it going?

Mike? Yeah, I'm mike.

Josh. Must be josh, right?

Yeah. Nice to see you, man.

Nice to meet you, man. Nice to meet you.

I see a lot of snowmobiles.

I take it that's our new mode of transportation?

Yep. A lot of snowmobiles.

And we kinda gotta get on the move here,

'cause it's gonna get dark and we've got

a couple days of traveling.

Mike libecki is a world-renowned climber

and survivalist who's made first ascents on mountains

from borneo to afghanistan.

His knowledge and experience

will be critical in leading our team to the dyatlov pass,

and getting us back alive.

How far is it from here to the pass?

So it's about 80 miles.

It's gonna take us about two days on snowmobiles.

Okay. Now keep in mind,

it took them about 10 days 60 years ago.

And they were doing it, like, old-school, right?

Wooden skis. Snow shoes. Oh, yeah.

Homemade clothing. Right.

You know, I feel a camaraderie with these guys,

and I still want to find out

just what the hell happened to these guys.

Yeah.

Mike's kinship with the dyatlov nine

is the reason he's conducting this investigation.

Whatever happened to them up there,

mike is convinced it was more than just an accident.

Okay. Now talk to me about safety.

It's mainly the cold you got to think about.

If your fingers are getting cold, I want to know about it.

If your toes are getting cold, let me know.

If you start getting cold, I need to know.

We need to stop and warm up.

Because if you go over the edge, you can get hypothermic.

We cannot make a mistake and get too cold.

Right. If you have any

skin exposure, you will get frostbite.

I mean, this is colder than antarctica.

Right. Yeah.

I mean, it's cold. Okay.

So we got a bunch of gear to get out of these trucks,

we got to get into our real cold-weather gear,

and then we got to strap all this stuff

in and get going, yeah? Yeah, well, let's get the crew,

let's get loaded up, and...

I want to get out of here before it gets dark.

Okay. Let's do it. Yep.

All right, guys. Come on.

With the sun sinking and the temperature following suit,

we quickly load all of our gear onto snowmobiles

and trailing sleds for the long journey ahead.

Quite simply, these machines are our life boats.

Without them, we will freeze.

Once everything is lashed down, we mount up, hit the throttles,

and speed off into the wilderness.

♪

josh. Radio check.

Do you read me?

I gotcha.

To make good time before dark,

we avoid taking the snowmobiles into the woods

and ride instead on top of a frozen river,

so I can add drowning to the list of things to worry about.

Teddy, those hikers came right through here.

They were on this river, right?

Okay, mike, talk to me. Where are we headed?

We're going to try to make it

to a local village closer to the pass.

Just watch out for bigfoot.

They've been seen around here.

Mike is joking...

Sort of.

Images from the last photos

retrieved from the hikers' cameras

have led dyatlov researchers to suggest

some of the more unconventional theories about the case.

Strange lights seen in several frames

have led some to claim that hikers encountered a ufo.

Others think that the group ran into a cryptozoological monster.

People have been telling stories

about a bigfoot-like creature across russia

for as long as anybody can remember.

In some areas, it's known as the almas.

Here, it's known as a menk --

a hulking, six-to-eight-foot tall,

bipedal primate covered in reddish-brown fur.

As evidence, many people have pointed to one photo

from the hikers' cameras,

which shows the blurry image of someone,

or something, leaning out from behind a tree.

Could this be the creature that ultimately killed them?

According to folklore, it's been known to steal people away

from villages and camps in the dead of night.

But I think we actually have evidence

that the hikers weren't very concerned about it.

The hikers themselves were making jokes about the menk,

even mentioning him in a satirical letter

that they wrote up.

As for the photo, by examining the pictures

before it on the roll of film,

we can prove that our menk is a hiker.

So as much as I love a good bigfoot story,

I'd say this particular theory is busted.

That's one theory down...

And several more to go.

We speed on toward dusk -- the mercury continues to drop --

and if we don't reach shelter soon,

we're in danger of exposure.

But by sticking to the river route,

we've also opened ourselves up to other dangers.

Ho-ho-ho! We just lost a sled!

♪

gates: I'm in the frozen wilds of siberia,

following in the footsteps of the doomed dyatlov expedition.

In 1959, nine hikers died in circumstances

that have never been explained.

Now we're making a treacherous high-speed journey

across a frozen river

in hopes of reaching the safety of a village before dark,

when suddenly, we have a problem.

Ho-ho-ho! We just lost a sled!

Hey!

An area of thin ice on the river

has snagged one of our supply sleds,

which are essential to our survival.

Now it's about to fall through the ice,

and we have to risk approaching it.

It's too heavy to move, so we're gonna try to get

a rope on it and pull it out before this gives way

and this and all of us go down into the river.

We hook up the sled to a second snowmobile

and hope that we have enough towing power

to pull it free from the ice.

Okay, here we go.

Come on, come on, come on, come on.

Come on, come on. Yes!

We got it!

Okay. Let's get out of here before we fall through the ice.

♪

it's imperative that we start to make better time,

because soon the sun will go down,

and once it does, it's gonna get so cold

that it's gonna be impossible

to operate these machines without getting frostbite.

Unable to trust this section of the river,

we'll have to move onto land.

This is absolutely treacherous in here.

We just got all these branches weighed down by snow.

If you're not careful, you can get clocked

right between the eyes.

Watch your head, everybody.

Ohh.

Not the best day to be a tall guy.

Yikes!

The trees slow us down.

And the sun is almost gone.

Mike, it's getting dark and cold.

You sure you know where this village is?

Libecki: Yeah. It's a place called ushma.

The indigenous people known as the mansi live there.

Right, the mansi.

I've read that people considered them potential suspects, yeah?

Yeah. The original investigators considered them

as the first suspects in the case.

Just like us, the hikers were following

an old mansi trail toward the pass.

They even photographed mansi symbols on trees,

leading some to theorize they may have desecrated a shrine

and angered the local population.

It shouldn't be too much further.

We kick on our lights to keep the trail in view,

then like a desolate miracle,

the mansi village of ushma appears out of the darkness.

All right. We're in ushma.

We're gonna camp here tonight.

Let's get all of our gear inside.

Let's get warm and get some dinner goin'.

Yeah. Okay. Sounds good.

As the team unloads our gear,

one of the mansi villagers warms up tea and invites me in.

Well, thank you very much for having us,

and thank you for the tea. Interpreter: Of course.

Get warm, and rest for as long as you need.

Thank you very much.

We really appreciate it.

The mansi live a life far removed from the outside world.

They're shy, but they're also hospitable and peaceful.

While some people have held onto the idea

that they could have been responsible

for the dyatlov incident,

the case files reveal that the mansi were the first

to join investigators in trying to locate the missing hikers.

And no physical evidence ever tied them to the scene.

They were cleared of any responsibility in the case.

And as they open their homes and hearts to my team,

it's easy to see why.

After saying good night, I take the short

but freezing walk back to our cabin.

Hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo.

Ah, warmth!

The room fits seven.

Tonight, it's sleeping 10.

Good night, everybody. -Good night.

♪

it is morning in the ushma village.

As you can probably tell, it's not particularly warm.

But everybody's up. We've had some food.

We've had a little coffee.

We're gonna pack the snowmobiles.

And today is a big day.

Today we're gonna try to make it all the way to the pass.

The crew packs everything back onto the sleds,

and we saddle up for the last push to the pass.

We're good. Let's go.

Okay.

♪

the forest instantly swallows us up, and we are alone.

Every step of this journey is just leading us

further and further into the unknown.

The train felt desolate...

The van ride felt lonely, and now...

...This just feels like the end of the world.

♪

soon, we begin to pass buildings.

We emerge into a clearing and what seems like another village.

But there's no one here but ghosts.

Teddy, what is this place?

Hadjiyska: This is part of the old gulag

that existed back then. Wow!

From the '30s to the '50s,

gulags were stalinist russia's hard-labor prisons

for untold millions of political dissidents and criminals.

The people sentenced here were forced to work

the country's most dangerous jobs in lumber and mining.

These were open-air jails, where escape wasn't impossible,

but it was unthinkable.

Wow!

Look at this place!

One popular dyatlov theory

suggests that the hikers were killed

by a desperate prisoner who escaped from this gulag.

It only takes one look inside the buildings to understand

how the prisoners might become so desperate.

Look at this. That's a boot.

Unbelievable.

That's somebody's liner from a boot.

These are called valenki.

They were very common in winter in this part of russia.

Wow. See how they're handmade?

Stitched at the bottom?

Yeah, look at that, you can see it's hand-stitched.

This is the same kind of footwear

that one of the hikers was found in.

Wow. Amazing.

Just to think about anybody surviving

and living out here is incredible.

It just seems like such a difficult place,

such a hard place, you know?

Let's leave it as we found it.

Libecki: All right then. Yeah. Come on.

Gates: Teddy has thoroughly reviewed the case file

from the soviet investigation.

Not surprisingly, when the hikers were found dead,

the investigators looked here for answers.

So let's talk about that.

We do have gulags, so that part of it holds up,

but what about this theory?

Is there any reason to suspect

that that could be what happened?

Well, they checked into it right away.

They checked their escapees at that time.

And were there any? There were none.

Let's not forget that in the tent,

there was nothing missing from the belongings of the hikers.

Right. That includes

all their money, alcohol, food,

and mainly, their boots, their clothing,

everything that would make an escapee very happy.

Right. So I mean, I think we can discount

that theory out of hand.

Absolutely. Don't you?

100%. Mathematically, no way.

Teddy, mike, and I are in agreement --

nobody from the gulag killed the hikers.

Let's get back on the snowmobiles and keep moving.

Yeah. Let's go.

We're closing in on the dyatlov pass,

so we climb aboard the snowmobiles one last time.

♪

the weather is on our side.

It's a sunny day, for the moment at least.

But even with calm skies, there's no place

in the siberian wilderness where you're truly safe.

♪

copy that. Do we need to stop now?

Gates: In the aftermath of the soviet union's collapse,

thousands of statues of communist leaders,

like lenin and stalin, were toppled.

In yekaterinburg, I got a chance

to see one of the towering figures that replaced them.

Can you explain this statue to me?

Yeah. Sure.

It's the main hero of a very popular russian tv show.

Okay. He's a very humble man

who sells shoes and he gives all his money

to his wife, who likes shopping,

and has never worked in her life.

And they have two kids.

One girl, who is extremely pretty but stupid...

Okay. ...And a boy.

And it's based on an american tv show.

It's based on an american tv show?

Yeah. Of a guy who sell--

uh, wait a minute.

Does he have a neighbor that he hates?

Yes. And he tries to humiliate her all the time

because she is a successful business lady.

It's "married... With children."

this is the russian al bundy.

♪

gates: My team and I are on snowmobiles,

making our final assault

on siberia's brutal dyatlov pass,

where 60 years ago, nine hikers mysteriously perished.

We're investigating the many theories of the case

when I get a radio call

that could mean we may not make it to the pass at all.

Copy that. Do we need to stop now?

Libecki: Aiden hit a tree. He hit a tree?

Okay. I'm circling back. Hang on.

We work together to get our tech manager's snowmobile

facing in the right direction.

Now the question is, will it start again?

One of our local crew isn't taking any chances.

He pours out a little vodka as an offering

so the mountain will let us go.

The snowmobile miraculously turns over,

and the rear guard of our group is soon back on the trail.

♪

okay. Final push. Here we go.

Six decades ago, the dyatlov hikers

watched these same trees go by on their way to otorten.

The last entry in the group's diary is from January 31, 1959.

They were planning to go up the ridge the next day

to a mountain pass that at that time had no name.

The very last thing igor dyatlov wrote was,

"we had supper right in the tent. It's warm.

It is hard to imagine such a comfort somewhere on the ridge,

with a piercing wind hundreds of kilometers

away from human settlements."

this turns out to be tragically prescient.

The next day, February 1, the hikers would camp below

that ridge in the same piercing wind.

And they would not live to see February 2.

♪

look at that. We're above the tree line for the first time.

And you can see just the endless expanse

of forests and wilderness

that we've been traveling through.

Ah, it's incredible.

So desolate.

So desolate. Unbelievable.

We're utterly exposed to the elements now,

traveling across a high-altitude tundra in whipping winds.

The slope is going to get too steep for us

to stay on the snowmobiles.

Fortunately, mike has made sure

we're prepared for the rest of the way.

♪

hey. There they are.

This is it.

All right. This is the camp.

Good. Good-lookin' tent.

This is the end of the snowmobiles.

From here, we walk to the pass.

Okay. Great. We'll get our gear inside, guys,

and we'll walk out. All right. Let's do it.

Let's do it. Come on.

♪

from here, it's a hike on foot to the pass.

It's uphill, and it is not easy.

The last mile is a grim, difficult grind.

♪

the cold is just brutal.

You can only uncover your face for a few moments at a time.

It's really hard.

Heuf.

After all this time and all these miles...

It is in this moment that I feel closest to the dyatlov nine.

♪

I've never been anywhere colder or more remote

from civilization than this.

If I think back to what it took just to get here,

it almost makes me shudder.

We are far, far, far from the civilized world.

Merely placing one freezing foot in front of the other here

is an affirmative act of survival.

Our entire journey has led to this moment.

After days on planes, trains, and snowmobiles,

and 60 years after nine idealistic young russians

came up this same ridge, the dyatlov pass is in sight.

The answer to this baffling mystery may lie directly ahead.

Next time on "expedition unknown"...

Our siberian investigation continues...

A few of them were missing their eyes,

and one of them was missing her tongue.

...As we unravel the 60-year-old mystery

of russia's dyatlov pass...

-Mountain of the dead. -This is the spot?

...With new evidence...

This is where things get really strange.

...New theories...

We know that there was madness, chaos, and murder.

...And a shocking discovery...

"February 15, '59."

this is a document that shouldn't exist.

Whoo!

♪

man: Aah! Someone help me!

Are you okay?