8:11 p.m. on December 22, 2013 (EST)
Well, now having read the book, I can't recommend it as enthusiastically as Big Red. A few comments:
The fact that Eicher does not know Russian leads to a number of misinterpretations or perhaps mistranslations by his interpreters. However, the one Big Red questions about the term "hiker" is not one of them. Russian is one of about a half-dozen languages I read (and even speak). The Russian word that transliterates as "tourist" is used to describe outdoor clubs, often associated with universities and colleges. I checked my very complete Russian English dictionary to be sure I was recollecting accurately. Sure enough, the first translation of "tourist" (wish I knew how to type on the computer in Cyrillic) means "hiker", and the second is "mountaineer" (in the sense of both "climber" and "mountain dweller"). So the club at the Institute was much like the outdoor club that Barb and I were in at UCLA, the Bruin Mountaineers (who did more backpacking than climbing, though a number of famous climbers were members at one time or another). Second thing here is that, while the 9 were using skis a lot on approach to "Dead Mountain" (in the local Mansi language, which the Mansi say refers to the lack of vegetation on the summit of Kholat-Syakhyl - some of the other 3 books call it "Mountain of Death", as does Wikipedia). But, given the snow conditions, especially when following the frozen streams, they were using the skis more as snowshoes, plus intending to hike to the summit without skis. So "hikers" is really more descriptive of their intentions.
An example of Eicher's mistranslations is when he is talking about students during the time that the incident occurred making clandestine copies of jazz, rock, folk, and other "westernized" records on "roentgen" film. He translates "roentgen" as "bone", whereas it really refers to film used for X-rays (named for Roentgen, the discoverer of X-rays, referred to in many languages as "roentgen rays"). This was a clever substitute for making vinyl disc copies, since vinyl was not available by government decree. The mistake is due to the fact that X-rays are used to take images of broken bones.
But, this example appears in Eicher's extensive interesting discussions of the Soviet Union under Stalin (Stalin died just a couple years before the incident, and students felt much freer under Khruschev, though many of Eicher's contacts remained ardent communists - hate Stalin, but still somewhat nostalgic for the old days, especially since many apparently currently hate Putin).
About 2/3 to 3/4 of the book is about Eicher's numerous dead-ends and struggles to get the real information. Many of the Russians and the locals had theories ranging from UFOs (I thought I was joking in my earlier post!), local people launching an angry attack on outsiders (the Mansli are actually a very friendly people), a nuke exploding in the vicinity, wild animals, and dozens of other conspiracy theories. I have serious reservations about Eicher's final conclusions, though it is clear that something suddenly and quickly panicked the 9 victims. His scenario of their reaction to whatever panicked them is reasonable. But having done research involving Karman streets back when I was doing a lot of fluid dynamics modeling, I have serious doubts about what triggered the panic. It is plausible, but a bit far-fetched. The only way to find out would be to carry out a controlled experiment on site at the same time of year under very similar meteorological conditions. I agree with his consultant at NOAA, Dr. Alfred Bedard, that the phenomenon he blames can cause discomfort. Whether to the extent needed to cause panic in the particular circumstances is another question.
The reason for the students going on the trip was that all were rated as Class II "tourists" and were taking the trip, documented with lots of photos, to qualify for the highest rank, Class III. They all had lots of experience and were well-equipped. The expedition had plenty of food and back-up spare gear, including extra skis and boots. The storm should have been well within their capabilities. I will note that Eicher mixes units, which is a bit confusing in places. Most of the time he uses temperatures in Fahrenheit, wind speeds in miles per hour, and distances in miles. But sometimes he seems to be using metric units straight from the maps or information given to him by the Russian officials and relatives he is interviewing. Since names of places were changed by the Soviets after the revolution, then again by Stalin, then to something else after the Soviet Union disbanded, sometimes he gives the current name and sometimes when referring to past history, one of the old names (sometimes both old and new names).
