The Soviet Union was known for its many incidents and tragedies. Just one such commonly known one is the Chernobyl Incident, in which potentially hundreds of thousands were killed.
So when just nine young hikers suddenly disappeared in the Northern Ural Mountains, not many questions were asked. Yet when the group was found by search parties weeks after their disappearance, investigations showed that all 9 had cut their tents open and fled, poorly dressed in subzero temperatures.
Six died of hypothermia and three of blunt force trauma. How they were found was even more strange: Four of the bodies were found lying in a creek, with two of the bodies missing their eyes, one missing their tongue, and one missing its eyebrows.
Shortly after the 1959 incident, local Soviet officials wanted a small funeral, hundreds of miles from home, with few in attendance, in order to keep the events surrounding their disappearance from gaining public interest. Soviet officials conclude their cause of death as some "compelling force of nature" that might have caused them to flee their tents.
Dead Mountain follows the narrative of Donnie Eichar, who takes the initiative to travel to Russia and document firsthand what really happened, delving into many theories from a variety of authorities: bear attacks, avalanche, infrasound-induced distress, high winds, or Soviet military or government experimentation, in an attempt to reconstruct what truly happened on that eerie night, deep in the Ural Mountains.
Opinion: I personally believed this book was extremely interesting, because at the time of writing there is no true answer to what fate the hikers met, so you feel that you are truly following along on an investigation to discover what happened. The only part of the book I found disinteresting was the points in which Eichar described his troubles in his travels, whether it was funding or missing his family. I could have done without his narrative, but some people might feel differently. Regardless, this book's eeriness is gripping, and I would recommend it to any reader, even if their interest is not in history.