By Astonishing Legends Productions
Published September 11, 2015 8:30pm
Background:
On January 27, 1959, a group of outdoor enthusiasts, known as 'tourists' in Russia, consisting of seven men and two women, mostly students and graduates of the Ural Polytechnical Institute (which is now the Ural Federal University) left the village of Vizhay in the northern Ural Mountains on a two-week ski trek, through a region called Sverdlovsk Oblast, the "gateway to Siberia" in Russia. In Russia a 'tourist' is a serious outdoorsman. The goal was to reach Otorten Mountain at the end of their journey. Their planned route would rank as a "Category III," the most difficult classification for a...