1990 MOUNT ELBRUS TRAGEDY: What Really Happened? 

Thank you for watching! What do you guys think really happened with this group? Here's another story that recently occurred on Elbrus: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ef0yozzcovw.html

Every time I hear a story where people are surprised that expert divers/climbers died, I want to remind them that just because someone has done something before doesn't make it any less risky. In fact experts are likely to become overconfident the more "experience" they get. This leads to negligence and laxness for their own safety. Example: Drivers can have years of experience driving without a car accident. They may have broken rules of the road, texted and driven, etc. without incident during that time, but it isn't because of their experience driving, but luck, and the awareness of other drivers on the road. It takes just one moment where their negligence can cause them to cause a collision, killing or grievously injuring themselves or other people on the road. We need to acknowledge EXPERT doesn't mean SAFE.

There is absolutely NOTHING strange about finding undressed frozen climbers: in the final stage of hypothermia, people feel extremely hot and begin undressing. That's bc the body gives up trying to preserve heat for the internal organs, and redirects it to the skin.

Small correction. Using a stove in a confined space would likely create dangerous levels of carbon monoxide. Carbon dioxide can also be a risk in places with poor air circulation, such as caves, but carbon monoxide is typically associated with burning a fuel source in this type of situation.

The fact that they were found half naked screams severe hypothermia. Paradoxically if you're too hypothermic it actually feels burningly hot, and so people will strip off layers thinking they need to cool off.

I love the use of these animations. Obviously there is no footage. But most channels would just show the same pictures over and over. Great idea amd great video.

When I lived in Japan I climbed Mount Fuji, which is the highest mountain in Japan but tiny compared to the world’s big summits ; some young American women I worked with - sisters much younger and fitter than me - had tried to climb it a few weeks before I did and had to stop halfway and go back because of altitude sickness. Both of them were sick but one was so sick she was vomiting and fainting. It’s a very common problem; some people’s bodies just can’t cope with high altitudes, and it has nothing to do with how young, healthy, and fit they are. I found the climb difficult and exhausting but I never felt sick. Someone told me later that it might have something to do with my having grown up in Saskatchewan, and living there most of my adult life. It’s very high altitude, even though the most populated parts of it ( including where I lived)are flat prairie. High altitude tolerance is probably a combination of genes and body conditioning. Your body adapts to certain environmental conditions often without you being aware of it.

Tbh, even in the Soviet Union, I think Occam’s Razor stands… overconfidence, pride, and poor conditions seem like much stronger factors than unspecified outside interference. Honestly, my main worry is that the more often stories of government interference (or worse, the paranormal) causing tragedies like this are told, the likelier it becomes that those who absorb them will ignore the basic factors of survival….

I think the answer is the simplest one. Levin was overconfident, and that one day delay in calling for a rescue was enough time for things to turn south. Especially when trapped in a wet, cold cave while a stove was running and filling the small space with carbon monoxide. While the carbon monoxide may not have immediately killed them (thanks to eventually digging a hole in the snow trapping them, thus ventilating the cave), the effects of carbon monoxide poisoning were already in motion. Between that, mountain sickness, and hypothermia, you have the perfect recipe for a group of ill people acting irrationally and nonsensical. As far as the excess supply of hooks, if they were planning to barter or trade with them, they were probably overly optimistic in how much they could trade. Overall, hubris and the carbon monoxide poisoning + hypothermia + altitude sickness make the most sense.

I climbed mt elbrus when I was 15. 2006. The airport confiscated all our propane equipment so when we got to the village at the base of the mountain a boy offered to find us some fuel. he returned with siphoned gasoline. we thought it was pretty funny. took a rickety ski lift of pure terror to a high altitude, cant remember the altitude but its just a day hike basically to the summit. ski lift was a single seat type with no safety bar and looked to be very old covered in rust. we spent the night up there, we were training for the other six world summits. next day, no food because no propane. we had no energy and didnt make it to the summit. I decided to head back down by myself early. We had figured out a long time ago therma-rests could be used as sleds so i brought mine with me. I sled down thousands of feet. I kept having to throw myself off because the speed would get too great. thats my mt. elbrus experience.

No one CONQUERS a mountain, it's always going to win, but you can climb them.

snow cave methods really need to be reviewed and practiced. a group of snow boarders died In Australia. not near the death zone.. just sealed in and all fell asleep for ever

Ignoring the excess of ice screws, everything seems to be a classic case of hypothermia, the haphazard stripping of clothes, delirium. When the body gets that cold its not uncommon to hallucinate, and on top of that the body feels hot for some reason and people begin to make frantic attempts to “cool down” By then almost no one has the sense to be able to snap out of it and get their clothes back on. Unless they somehow hallucinate their way into doing it, which has happened before a few times. The blood was very clearly caused by the biting attack by an obviously hallucinating person. All the physical fitness in the world wont save you from a 28c core temp.

You’d be surprised at what can go through someone’s mind with Mountain Sickness. I think pretty much all of this could be explained by Mountain Sickness and carbon dioxide in the cave. And all because he didn’t convey the amount of trouble they were in.

It’s crazy while ascending, being told to keep an eye out for dead bodies. As I continue to learn anything and everything from the cold it is to keep moving, even if you have to crawl, MOVE. Also, I have noted almost every snow cave created will eventually CAVE IN SOONER THAN LATER from the warmth and carbon monoxide generated inside slowly depleting ALL oxygen. I dislike how Leven made multiple bad choices due to his pride and ego, leading to only 2 men surviving this ordeal. . So so disheartening. A man’s down fall is usually, himself.

as the stove produced more carbon dioxide and oxygen availability decreased, it would have begun burning less efficiently and producing carbon monoxide instead of dioxide. carbon monoxide will kill you pretty well... but before it does it'll cause confusion, disorientation, vomiting (with blood? maybe that was from eating all that hair?), and even hallucinations. They probably went a little mad from it. from there, some exited the cave and sounds like some paradoxical undressing.

I’m a major fan of your longer hour long content Archie. Been a fan since Day 1. You’ve came a long way, keep going and thank you for sharing.

The quality of your videos consistently goes up with every upload. I love the new animations, and your editing gets better and better. Great video!

Very well done video, I love the new animation style! 👍 Just one thing worth mentioning: paradoxical undressing, sometimes followed by terminal burrowing, is a common behaviour among victims of severe hypothermia. That particular circumstance of those poor men's demise is, on its own, not unusual. Edited to fix a grammar mistake.

Based on the fact that they were missing clothes and boots, immediately suggests hypothermia as the most obvious cause of death. People suffering Hypothermia are typically found this way, as signals to/from your brain are so degraded that you begin to feel overheated, thereby believing the opposite to be true. Their degraded mental state (from either Hypothermia or Carbon Monoxide Poisoning) would also explain many of the other oddities, such as the hair eating and so forth.

I loved your video. I'm always looking for strange and mysterious happenings. Thanks for sharing.

Carbon monoxide poisoning and hypoxia cause hallucinations. It is entirely possible that the strange behaviour such as eating hair and any possible violence is down to that. I don't think anything mysterious happened, but it is certainly tragic.

12:05 'Paradoxical undressing' is not at all uncommon. 15:00 18,000 isn't enough to start killing you, if you get HAPE or HACE, then yes, but altitude has to be like 25,000+ for the body to slowly die.

Great video, one of those sad tradegies to be mulled over for even more years as to why and how. Thanks for your work, really well done.

The half naked ones can probably be explained by paradoxical undressing. Its still not fully understood I think but it's basically when the body gets cold enough,like when you're suffering hypothermia, it starts redirecting all the body heat to your internal organs. All the heat in one place makes you actually start to feel warm. Combine this with the delirium that comes with hypothermia and people will start stripping off their clothes because they think they're too hot

I believe this mostly pride and fear of failure. I have witness altitude sickness. I i know that even the descent of a few hundred feet can lesson or alleviate the symptoms. And in moderate weather, they should have chanced the descended and made a new snow shelter. Also, ive have been taught if just an acclimation hike, you ALWAYS be prepared to spend the night.

Love your videos. Very well done. Thank you.

My unprofessional guess on the ice screws is that they were trying to get more experience with which ones worked best in which situations, since this trip was said to be warm up for a sort of rescue mission.

I think they were victims of altitude sickness. People who are affected will likely be irrational and behave in strange, even violent, ways. Given that the team leader was so experienced, I feel that he would have been able to save his team had he made the best of any opportunity to go down the mountain rather than staying put. In the end, it's impossible to know exactly what happened because the survivors would have likely been suffering from hypoxia as well as hypothermia making their recollections inaccurate. I don't believe there was any government conspiracy or paranormal incident in this case. They were caught unprepared and they made mistakes. RIP to all those who died.

Pride is a covert and an overt enemy. It is deadly in situations like this. If I were to go into the mountains and encounter the weather that they encountered, I would probably return to the shelter or make a snow cave for one night and one night only. Rescue equipment like radios will be working fine. A rescue team on standby.

Actually stripping clothes off is quite common in severe cases of hypothermia as the brain is shutting down.

I always love the amount of detail you put into your mountaineering stories- particularly the Russian ones as they aren't covered by many people.

That's the weirdest pronunciation of "banal" I have ever heard. Should be "ban-aal".

The problem with experts is that sometimes they become overconfident. They've done this before, it's no big deal, etc... until something happens. I can't tell you how many times I hear about "experts" coming to grief - expert woodsmen disappearing from deep forests, expert mountaineers dying on the mountain, and so on.

PRIDE’S a killer thing. BEEN proven for eons. I immediately thought (with the EXCELLENT graphics & editing) that the ‘snowcave’ was HUGE! A fantastic recreation..thanks!

Ego and male pride killed these men rather than anything mysterious

One discrepancy. Did the snow cave occur at 4200 meters (or roughly 13k feet)? That seems low to experience hardcore HAPE or HACE. The peak of Elbrus is definitely in the lower range for potential altitude sickness at 18.5k feet. To offer context Everest base camp is at 17.5k feet. That’s base camp. Just above the final village. I’ve trekked at 12,000 feet and yes there was a sense of short breathing and headache but we were nowhere near altitude sickness. This is an extremely important fact pertaining to this case. If they were at 13,000 feet it’s hard to lend much credence to altitude sickness (especially group symptoms) But if they were upwards of 15.5k -16k then altitude sickness becomes more likely. Great video 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

Sounds like a fun camping trip.

How could they tell beyond a doubt that the radio found was broken on purpose???

I like your new animation style . It looks very good. Are you using a particular software?

Even though mankind can split the atom, send probes out of our solar system and make our genome...we are still at the mercy of the elements. Although my guess is hypothermia and carbon monoxide poisoning probably sealed their fate.

People can feel burning hot in the late stages of freezing, especially when other detrimental factors like exhaustion and hypoxia are added. This is not the only deadly accident when people who were actually freezing to death were throwing away their clothing and footwear that suddenly felt unbearably hot.

Hello. Can you spell the first and last name of the group leader or one of the other group members? This is an interesting case and I’m trying to find more info by searching the name “Levin”, but I can’t find anything.

Mountain sickness and poisoning air makes you do crazy stuff, bad combo.

Have you done Pobeda'55 disaster? This one reminds me of it. Or Pobeda in general, it's almost as deadly as 8thousenders.

30 M per second… Thats some intergalactic level wind right there 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

Missing clothes in a hypothermia situation is not weird. I’m not sure why narrators on YT keep claiming it’s so bizarre and mysterious. It’s not. We know why it happens, and it happens often in situations like this. Also- any community where asking for help is considered a slight on your reputation, is not a community I want to be in. Prime example? This video here. People DIED due to their own pride and due to the community’s reputation for its response to asking for help. This is a dangerous hobby, one where asking for help when it’s needed should be ENCOURAGED, not discouraged.

I tend to believe that most of the unexplained things that happen in these stories are due to the people losing their minds and doing crazy things. Then people analyze the events and try to make sense of things done by people who were acting completely irrationally.

Awesome vids always Archie!

I have a feeling you meant to say the stove was giving off carbon monoxide (CO), not carbon dioxide(CO2). Great video though.

So glad I found your excellent channel - just subscribed!

I've not ever heard of this story..🤔 It's quite an interesting tale,though. It's got some very odd details,to be sure.

Levin’s pride was as deadly as the weather.

One of the last stages of freezing to death causes one to perceive they are overheating.

Lucky for me i don't have these problems since I don't climb. But after watching these videos seems sensible to carry supplemental oxygen in case things go wrong.

It makes it difficult to draw any sort of a firm conclusion when descriptions of how long somebody has been somewhere it's referred to as a few days. Please if you can be more specific. What's up 2, Three, 4 or more days. A few days is very subjective.

Omg.... Leave one or two people with those who are in bad shape and the rest of you go get help, the entire team..... They were asked to be rescuers if something happened, who tf did they turn down? Yeah yeah, i get it, you work with what you have.

Classic case of hypothermia/altitude sickness and their effects.

What i think happens goes as follows: Clinber 1: "We need to call for help. The situation is dire." Climber 2: "Relax. Everything is under control." Climber 1: "For christ sakes, Vlad is eating hair. This isnt just a SNAFU!" Vlad: "Hey! Dont judge me. When i was a child and dreamed of being a climber i never saw my life turning out like this but im making the best of it."

It would fill with carbon monoxide... not carbon dioxide

What kind of hair was it? I mean pants unbuttoned and pulled down?

Very well done video😊

Complacency. Just because you've done something a hundred times with no ill consequences doesn't mean those consequences won't ever happen. My late grandfather was a woodworker for most of his life with no accidents. One day without thinking he tried fixing a jammed saw blade without turning off the power to it. He lost his pinky, half of his ring finger and the top of his middle finger on his right hand. Always be prepared for any given circumstance and lose the "it'll never happen to me" mentality. I'm not saying to live in fear all your life but to be mindful.

So sad, thx

Couple of families climbed Ben Nevis when I was 10. We climbed down and everyone was flat-out on their backs. I was playing football with other kids on campsite... that's when we discovered I have mad ADHD. Keeps me young as most think I'm early 30s. Almost 44 now

Great documentary to watch and I feel sorry for these souls who lost their life, I don't blame anyone for passion to climb up mountains and doing risky actions. I also grew up in a mountainous place in Southern part of Caucasus and beautiful scenery of mountains always attracted me as a child and even time to time I climbed lower ones. Sorry for my bad English and I'm still learning English, it would be great to communicate with a native speaker to improve it, if anyone is interested in talking to a person who's from completely other culture and of course eager to speak) can reply this comment

I think it was just human error combined with bad decisions, stubbornness, Weather and staying out too long was the cause. Those mountains will kill you.

This was simply the result of overconfidence, pride, and hypothermia. Paradoxical undressing is a well documented effect of hypothermia.

HEY MAN HEY MAN, I WANT TO CORRECT YOU WITH SOMETHING I WANT TO HELP YOU OUT REAL QUICK, Great video BTW I don't know anything about mountain climbing. but I did go out with a Russian girl from Abkhozia... It's actually pronounced "A-Poz-e-a.... like Apozia! promise. if I learned anything besides Russian, I learned about their beautiful country that I actually got to visit right next to in Sochi. I also took an excursion to the caucus mountains and they were beautiful. It was an awesome climb that I used all fours on but a Russian grandmother with a kid around her shoulders walked straight up lol they had a thing with bees, b nectar be milk which I never even heard of bee honey of all sorts, beautiful stuff the caucuses are

That's huge. I've been to the top of High Tatras. It's half that size. I started and it was a warm 28 degrees. But at the top, all I could see was white, with hail battering me. And that's only half of this place

Eight people in a small snow cave are also going to exhale a lot of CO2 over time. That CO2 could significantly impair thought processes.

I’ve always loved mountaineering stories but it’s much nicer when we have a happy ending

This sounds eerily similar to the Dyatlov Pass incident, in which nine Russian hikers died in the Urals in Siberia in 1959. There was evidence of very irrational behaviour before death there, too. Actually a legend grew out of that incident, that they had been ambushed and killed by a group of the Russian version of the “Yeti”.

Occam's razor suggests it's hubris.

Nicely done! By the way, do you have the records of those 2 Japanese men's names?

They didnt have the great snow suits that are available now. Soooo cold!😢

Probably a fight over telling base camp the truth combined with moutain sickness and hypothermia

In the final stages of freezing to death you get hot and take your clothes off

There is one rule in diving, each man for himself. If the others had gone to the shelter or even dragged the fella, they might have survived.

It could have been several things at once or in succession. Carbon dioxide ect. To hypothermia and mountain sickness.

Knowing u need help but your ego gets in the way would have probably saved lives sad

Breathing creates carbon dioxide too.. more likely the stove had a nice yellow flame and was making caRbon MONOXIDE.. it alone explains most symptoms...

That's one crazy story.

Paradoxical undressing happens when the body's last ditch effort for survival sends blood rushing to the core and it causes a heat flash which makes people feel extremely hot. That happens in the mid to severe hypothermic state in somewhere near 50% of cases.

General knowledge of mountains and general knowledge of survival. Everybody gets hurt like that, all over the world. We hear from Americans that someone was an experienced hunter, a hiker, an outdoorsman and that person is missing. That's all true, but the fact is they've never been in extreme situation. And extreme situation is a broad term. In ordinary, harmless, picnic hikes, tensions rise if the guide looks at the map, the group catches the rain, people get bored with walking. And that is why the guide must put everyone in place and be aware of his abilities and incompetence. Help was called in here too late and I think not going to Shelter 11 is a bad decision. The group simply wasn't up to the situation.

Hypoxia makes people engage in irrational, unpredictable behavior as it sets in.

Wouldn’t they know how dangerous stoves are in confined spaces?

1:44 if it's cyclical,then it's predictable, literally what the term means.

I went ice fishing and know that in an enclosed space you can get co2 poisoning. I'd go outside to get fresh air and opening the door would let good air in.

I'll just stay home.

Is this 4500 meters or feet?

Correction it's _Less Air Pressure_ at high altitudes not Oxygen. There's the same amount of availability Oxygen at Sea Level as there is at the peak of Everest..

One thing ive learned researching mountaineering. Is never climb a mountain in Russia. Weird things happen on their mountains man! 😮

I dont know anything about mountain climbing but not taking a tent to a huge snowy mountain sounds like one of the stupidest shit ive heard in my life Even if its only a day

Egos, that’s usually what leads to this.

Hey you had me at blood ❤

People shocked someone with years of experience in climbing could die on a mountain with millions of years of experience in being dangerous.

I think you could have investigated a little more. You did not tell us anything about the condition of the bodys or the hair found in the stomach or was that all just clickbait?

I get SO frustrated when people with removed clothing who died from hypothermia is strange as it SO SIMPLY EXPLAINED: it’s called paradoxical undressing. When dying of hypothermia the body causes the blood vessels to surge with blood towards the surface of the skin so that they suddenly feel very hot & begin to undress, which they don’t consider the absurdity of as they’re so disoriented. People dying from hypothermia also tend to attempt to get into small tight spaces as it seems to something biological that people & animals do to find warmth.

it is natural tragedy totally ,, and the walky talky fell and was smashed, it is ridiculous so many people have insane theories they tried be a very careful group