Lenin Peak.

At seven one hundred thirty four meters or twenty three thousand, four hundred and six feet tall, it is the most climb mountain on Earth that is over seven kilometers tall, and it's easy to see why just by looking at it.

It looks a fair bit wider than it is tall, giving it a much gmler slope and making it a much less technical climb than most mountains of its size.

It's even developed a reputation for being a relatively safe mountain, but that's not quite the whole story.

In a cruel twist of irony, despite this reputation, it's also the site of some of the most harrying expeditions to have ever occurred, including the single deadliest mountain expedition in recorded history.

These are those instants, and as always, view discretion is advised.

Lenin Peak is located in the Translay Range to Jikistan, along the border with Kyrgyzstan, only fifty three klometers from the very westernmost.

Point of China.

Before nineteen twenty eight, it was known as Mount Kaufman, and since two thousand and six it has since been renamed once again to Ibna Sina.

At least that's what it's called Tajikistan because Kyrgyzstan disagrees on its name.

Simultaneously, tribes of the Ara know the mountain by a different name.

So for a simplicity, we're gonna use the most commonly known name Lenin Peak.

But one other thing the mountain was commonly known as was safe, and in fact there's something to this because Lenin Peak is the most climb mountain in the world that is over seven kilometers tall at seven thirty four meters or twenty three thousand, four hundred and six feet.

The reason why is actually pretty apparent just from looking at it.

The mountain isn't that steep in many places, and it looks a fair bit wider than it is tall from some angles.

This makes it seem like it merges into the neighboring mountains seamlessly, almost like one long ridge, and this makes for another interesting feature.

The mountain's wide stance means for more possible ways to attack the mountain.

So while many mountains can have as few as one common climbing root or maybe three to five is an average, Lenin Peak has sixteen available roots.

Some of these are simple enough that even beginner climbers were able to accomplish them with some preparation.

This has led to the mountain's safe reputation while also still having more difficult options for those who choose them.

Lenin Peak was also once believed to be the highest peak in the Soviet Union, giving it a prestigious reputation on many climber's bucket lists.

In addition, in the early days, it was popular primarily among Soviet climbers because of how difficult it was to travel outside the country.

It would remain this way for decades, and in that time many of the camps still used today were established along the most popular routes the very last stretch of the Soviet Union.

So the early nineties was a tumultuous period, to put it lightly.

Only a few years earlier, the Chernobyl disaster had shaken the Union, and the cracks from the economic and political pressures were starting to show simultaneously on the world stage.

It was more important than ever to project an image of stability, and on top of that, climbing clubs and now the regular people still cared on with their own plans.

Any things going on was a Soviet climbing team preparing for an expedition to Mount Everest.

Several dozen members were at Lenin Peak from multiple different climbing clubs, as well as some from outside the Union.

They all planted climate over the coming few days, and the best among them would be selected for the expedition.

Lenin Peak gave them a chance to work out any bugs and for the more experienced members of the team to watch the others in action.

In fact, one of the most experienced members there was Vladimir bally Burden, who was the very first Soviet climber to ever reach the summit of Everest NK two.

This made him about the most qualified judge you could find for such a team.

Besides the personnel, the mountain itself was also very well suited.

Even though Lenin Peak is shorter than Everest, the classic root up the mountain's north face is superficially similar to Everest's.

It begins with a gradual climb up to the glacier at the base, followed by an S shaped midsection with multiple camps, and then approaching the summit along a ridgeline like a miniature Everest.

The mountain is also high enough to require auction tanks and time spent acclimatizing to the altitude.

This means a lot of the preparation is specific, but also the chances of something going fatally wrong are much lower.

The teams began their climb in the early days of July nineteen ninety, with Lendin Peak commonly quite pleasant during the summer.

Being as far inland as it is, the mountain isn't known for large amounts precipitation, and even though it has large swaths of perma frost and glacial ice, the thinner atmosphere and reflection of sunlight off the snow minute not uncommon that winter clothes were not needed on Winfrey days.

In fact, you were often more likely to get a sunburn on the slopes of Lenin Peak than frostbite during the summer, even though you might have dozens of feet of ice beneath you.

One of the climbers in the group, Alexi, had even previously some of the mountain wearing just a T shirt and pants.

The first major camp up the mount itself was known as the frying Pan.

This was a large flat era between the mountain's main body and one of its shoulders, at about fifty three hundred meters or seventeen thy four hundred feet up.

This is also a bit less than halfway to the top from base camp at forty two hundred meters or thirteen thy eight hundred feet.

It was well lit during the day and it made for perfect campground because the error was known to be quite stable as well, with the last avalanche being a full of thirty years prior.

It was also tucked a little to the side of the main northern face, and that meant most avalanches passed it by entirely, so year after year served as one of the most popular camps in the entire mountain and was part of at least two main routes.

On the thirteenth of July that year, though the weather wasn't nearly as cooperative as most summers, an unseasonable snowstorm blankeded the mountain in the first day, coming down hard across the entire northern face, and delayed the climb until it passed.

Once things seemed to settle down, close to fifty members of the Varius groups set out for the frying Pan and would reach it and begin to set up camp at the same time that really experienced climber, Vladimir just had a bad feeling about things, so once he reached the frying pan, he decided to head back down to base camp and assess the mountain again the next day.

He would almost do this alone until one of his friends, Boris, realized he didn't have enough auction to continue, either due to a leak or an earlier calculation error.

Boris's girlfriend, Elena, also decided to return with them, but shortly into the journey fell sick, possibly as a result of not being acclimatized yet, so she would end up deciding to stay at camp and come down to meet them later if things didn't improve.

Up above, a total of forty five people at dinner, tended to their equipment and mingled as they waited out the last hours of the day and went to bed.

The following day, they would continue up to the second and third camps, and maybe even Summon on the same date, depending on how things went.

Then, just before six fifty pm, hundreds of kilometers away in the Hindu Kush region, a magnitude of six point four earthquake struck over two hundred klometers beneath the Earth's surface.

The climbers felt nothing high up on London Peak, and those below for hundreds of kilometers.

It may have only noticed a slight rumbling, but what did feel it was the glacier.

One of the siraqs, which is a large vertical chunk of ice along the mountain's face, then broke off and fell into the massive volume of freshly fallen snow, which was already overloading the mountain's face.

In a matter of seconds, a single multi hundred ton chunk of ice had started a multi thing one thousand ton avalanche around one and a half kilometers wide.

Hardly anyone in the camp even had time to get out their sleeping bags, never mind their tents, before the wave hit them and rolled over the frying pan.

In only a few seconds.

The entire camp was gone moments later, once the chaos ended and the snow settled, Although they didn't know it at the time.

Out of the forty five climbers there only two escaped.

Alexi and a man named a Miro had been camping near the edge of the frying pan, closest to the slope, so rather than the snow rolling over top of them and bearing their tents, it pushed them off the edge and set them tumbling down as much as eight hundred meters over twenty five hundred feet before dropping them both off a twenty five meter or eighty foot cliff into a mount of snow.

Once at the bottom, Alexei lurched and stumbled out of the snow, bruised, cut and wearing little more than socks and a torn set of pants.

He had been getting ready for bed when the wall of snow hit him and threw him out of his own tent.

It took a moment to even realize what has happened, but then he saw a mural half sticking out of the snow.

And heard over to help them out.

Nearby, they also on the legs of another climber who had been killed by the fault, but they were bared too deep in the snow to be pulled out.

Now, the two of them, practically naked, stranded on the side of the mountain and freezing to death, had to find a way to survive.

They realized that if they tried to go back down the mountain they would freeze on the way, so instead they climbed back up and search for their old campsite.

For all they knew, only a part of the camp had been hit and they may even find shelter there still.

When they finally made it back to camp, though, what they found was both a nightmare and salvation.

They couldn't see any other people at the camp, but they could hear some.

A few were still wrapped in their sleeping bags, but now pinned by the way to the snow, and while the bags may have insulated them and kept them alive slightly longer, they would run out of air over the coming hours.

For Alexian Mirro, as horrible as it was, the others were simply too deep to dig out and impossible to find.

Both men were also still at risk of freezing to death, so it's not like they were in a position to mount to rescue.

Fortunately, while the heavier objects like people, auction tanks and cooking stoves had some to the bottom of the snow, loose articles of clothing and the torn fabric of tents had ended up on the surface.

Alexian Mural then wrapped themselves in whatever they could find to survive the night and huddle together for warmth, hoping that nothing else happened.

Down at the base of the mountain.

Vladimir was one of the first to notice something was wrong, and began calling others to join them and rescue before the avalanche had even fully settled, But even so, it would take hours to reach the frying pan through the newly churned, unstable snow.

Back up at the frying pan the next morning, Alexian Mirror woke up to the blinding white cold, still alone on the face of the mountain.

It was obviously going to take rescuers time to reach them, so the two had no choice but to start down together, and as if things couldn't get worse, they even had difficulties seen the ground in front of them because a dense fog had rolled in.

They actually took to occasionally throwing snowballs ahead of themselves to mark the path and listened to what they hit.

They also walked barefoot through the snow, or possibly with clothing wrapped around their feet, and it was only the intermittent sun that somehow prevented frostbite.

They were also both injured, with a broken arm and a broken leg between them.

Suffice it to say, the climb was beyond grueling, and by seven pm, Mirr wasn't able to continue, even with Alexi urging him on, so Alexi offered to go find help and carry it on down the mountain side after giving mir the warmest clothes they had.

Alexi has since said that an iron determination not to die and to have a glass of lemonade is what kept him going, and it finally paid off.

Vladimir and the others had found their earlier tracks from when they'd climbed back up to the camp and knew there were survivors in the mountain, and they finally found Alexi.

They then gave him warm clothing and brought him down the mountains the base camp after he told them where to find Mural.

Helicopters soon arrived on the mountain, along with dozens of early rescuers trying to dig the survivors of the frying pan, but it was already too late.

The weather had been too cold, and overnight it hardened the loose powder of the avalanche into a single mass of ice that made digging ten times more difficult, But by then it was likely that any survivors who had been buried had long passed away.

Anyway, Mirror was recovered a few hours later before the end of the day.

He and Alexi would be both the first and the last survivors found on the face of the mountain and were taken to the hospital in the city of ash After them, only four bodies would be recovered at the campsite, including the one Alexei and mir had landed here, with the rest scattered and buried so widely and so deeply that efforts to even locate them were practically impossible.

It would take until two thousand and.

Eight, when the glacier began to mount, for more remains to be recovered.

An expedition was mounted by Peter Chedrin, who was the son of one of the lost climbers of the expedition, and along with them Alexi returned to the thrying pan for the first time since the disaster, as a guide and hopefully as a kind of closure.

While there, he even managed to recover some of the climbing pitons he'd used and a pair of ice axes they'd left on the mountain.

Alexei would also go on to make several trips in two thousand and eight, two thousand nine, twenty ten, and eleven, and continued attempts to recover the bodies of his friends and colleagues with the same determination that saved him in the first place.

And many of them were brought back down the mountain mummified or as bones and buried around a memorial stone at the base of the mountain.

Most of them, however, are still upon the slopes.

Among them are twenty three members of the Leningrad Mountaineering Club, including Elena, as well as six members from former Czechoslovakia for Israelis, two Swiss mountaineers and one Spaniard.

But even among those recovered, most the bodies have not been identified.

So it's with a sense of irony that a mountain considered to be safe should be the site of climbing's single large stathyl.

But it also served to remind that there is no such thing as truly safe.

No matter what, a mountain is still a mountain, and just calling a mountain safe might have contributed to many of those who chose to climb there, increasing its popularity and the chance of something going wrong.

Put more cars through an intersection, or boats between a pair of islands, or more people along a certain stretch of sidewalk, and you're going to have more accidents no matter what you do.

And so, as you might imagine, this.

Was not the first disaster in London peak, and it certainly wouldn't be the last.

The very first documented climb of the mountain killed eleven people in nineteen fifty five, and we have no idea how many local villagers or people who traveled through the mountain range died in ancient history.

It's probably not many, but zero would be even more unlikely.

As long as the mountain is there, someone will climb it, and that continues to this day.

One of the most recent disasters was in twenty twenty two, but this one is different.

In August of twenty twenty two, Ilias said goodbye to his family in Moscow and made his way to London Peak.

Landing in the city of ash he met one of his friends, Zora, another accomplished climber, but once they arrived, plans changed.

Their intended mountain guide had fallen ill, but they had already spent the money on the plane tickets and they were there, so they figured they might as well go anyway.

The two of them then decided to head up to Camp one from base camp and see if they could find a guide.

Were another group to join with, and of all the people they could find, they found Vechislav Shako.

He was known as a bit of a weirdo in an affectionate way.

He was known for climbing the mountain in shorts and flip flops and carrying loads as heavy as he was to the top before coming down on skis still carrying the full load.

He was definitely a bit of a madman, but also one of the few people who knew the mountains so well he could actually climb it during whiteout conditions.

Shiko was also well known for being quiet and friendly, so he was all too happy to assist them.

The two men spent some time practicing small climbs up to four thousand meters to acclimatize, and after six days of bad weather, on the twenty seventh of August, Vecchislav woke the two of them up to clear skies.

It was finally time, and the three of them began their way up almost immediately, though during the ascent from Camp two up towards the frying pan, Ilia slipped on a rock and dislocated his knee.

He was able to get it back into place, and since the climb had only just begun, he decided to try to continue.

Unfortunately, though he very quickly ran through the entire set of painkillers he had with him.

Then, when the group came to the next challenge, which was an ice cliff halfway between the camps at the base of a glacier, he knew he couldn't do it.

To climb this segment required a pre placed rope and it was a single file system.

If he made it part way up and discovered he couldn't do it, it would be impossible for anyone else to safely pass him, and much more difficult for them to help him down.

So as much as Ilia wanted to join them on the climb, he wasn't about to put them in danger.

With reluctance, he turned back to camp two and vowed to rest up and see if he could meet up with them later.

Zora and Vechislav then made their way up to the na X camp in good spirits, recording video along the way, and Ilia went back down waiting for them to get in touch.

But then the next day he heard nothing, and worrying about the weather, he continued back down to base camp.

There on the second day, Ilia asked if anyone had heard from Zora and Vechislav, only to be told they were gone.

This didn't make sense.

What could have happened in such a short period of time.

Ilia would later learn that Zora and Vechislav had made their whip to the frying Pan, then further to Camp four on the Classic group.

When the weather turned as they arrived.

They were soaked and cold and quickly huddled into their tent to avoid hypothermia, when tragically they made a simple mistake setting up a small burner to make some tea.

The two men unzipped the tents inner and outer layers to let the air circulate, but the fresh snowfallen wind was secretly working against them all while they waited for the water to boil, the snow had grown high enough to block airflow into the tent, slowly building up levels of toxic carbon monoxide.

This is why you're never supposed to run a burner inside of tent, but with stormy weather blowing outside, it was the only real way they could have even tried, and it's not uncommon for Clemish to do so, even though the rules.

Say you shouldn't.

The effects afterward come on slow, delling the mind and impairing judgment.

Before lulling the victims to sleep with the bright sunlight peaking through the thin layers of white snow.

They never even noticed the tent flap was plugged.

The two men weren't found until many hours later, after the burner had totally run out of fuel.

A year later, Illio had published a documentary in their honor, showing how incredible their friendship was in such a short period.

It's because of him and other people who have transmitted the incident that we even know about the case.

It's one of hundreds each year around the world that are too small to make international headlines.

There's no great avalanche, no dramatic radio calls, just two men.

Making an honest mistake.

But despite this tragedy just a few years ago and the larger death toll of the nineteen ninety avalanche, maybe the most harrowing disaster in Lenin Peak came sixteen years earlier.

In nineteen seventy four, Lenin Peak was well into its popularity as a tourist destination, and despite being within the borders of the Soviet Republic, the July of that year saw Americans, Japanese, French, Scottish and many other nations all camping, climbing, and sharing in the sport and struggle.

In fact, there were over two hundred and thirty klombers assembled in a base camp from over a dozen countries.

This wasn't just a normal month in the mountain, though it was the largest international climbing event Lenin Peak had ever hosted.

To try and foster friendly international relations.

There was still likely some degree of healthy rivalry between the groups, but the true challenge was always the mountain itself, so in the spirit of this common struggle, most of the groups are quick to help one another and make friends.

One of the Russian teams climbing in the mountain, though, stood out.

It was led by Elvira Sharayeva, who is one of the most accomplished climbers in the USSR and by extension, one of the most famous on Earth.

At the age of thirty six, she held the title Master of Sport, which was an award given to national champions in the Union.

It was also reevaluated every four years within the Olympic cycle, so to have the title you had to actively keep earning it or it would be taken from you, and she made a compelling case.

Two years prior she had led an all woman climb up the third highest mountain in the same range, and the year before, in nineteen seventy three, she led another expedition to Folly Traverse Ushba, one of the most striking mountains in all of de Caucasus Range in Georgia.

That year, though in nineteen seventy four it was time for her to finally tackle Lenin Peak with another all female team.

Elvira was actually known widely enough that not only had many of the American climbers already heard of her, but some of them looked up to her as an inspiration.

And to reiterate this is in nineteen seventy four, the middle of the Cold War, her being an idol in the eyes of some American climbers was a huge deal.

One of these admirers, Molly, had arrived some days earlier and was helping port supplies up the mountain to Camp two, known as the Cross Camp.

As they were doing this, the group heard the rumblings of an avalanche above and watched helplessly as a massive wall of powdered ice washed down the side of the mountain.

Thankfully, only a portion of it struck the second camp, scattering gear and bearing one of their team.

While others took shelter in the cross the camp was known for, but the group then also watched the wave roll down towards Camp one, where four of the members had recently returned to get another little supplies.

Molly and the rest of her group heard down the mountain side, which still took hours before finding that, thankfully, no one was killed in the instant.

One in me lower group, Allen had been buried up to his neck, with some minor injuries dealt here there, but overall everyone was all right.

At the same time, though, although the teams were still determined to continue the climb, everyone involved was a little shaken.

For about an hour after the avalanche, both groups believed the others might have died, so they all ended up deciding to head back down to base camp as soon as they felt able.

When they arrived, Molly came face to face with one of the reasons she'd want to come.

She later described her as a strong, bossy blonde woman ordering around four large Russian men.

The blonde woman pointed to a limp and climber they had with them.

This climber had sprained his leg after leaping into a ravage for shelter The blonde woman then ordered people to collect his pack and assist him, before turning to Molly and saying, very matter of factly, quote, I'm Elvi or Charayeva.

I'm a master of spoor.

What are you?

Yet?

Despite the very blunt introduction, Molly was starstruck.

She described Elvira as everything she wished she could be well respected, taking charge and giving orders that others followed without questioning who she was to give them.

By contrast, Molly was to say twenty four year old local climbing instructor from Colorado who had lived out of her car.

Obviously, she was still good enough to be selected for the expedition, but the comparison still stood out.

All of this is to say that Elvira was a force to be reckoned with.

Her plan was to not only be the first all women team to climb the mountain, but to be the first effort to go all the way up one route and then down the other side, which would be a full traversal of the mountain.

The idea itself wasn't impossible, Lenin Peak isn't very technically challenging, but a full traverse would have the team spend an extended period of time at high altitudes, and it also means they'd have to bring all their camping year with them to the top, since they wouldn't be coming down the same way.

Some people thought the idea was ambitious and a bit risky, but recalled a certain energy in Alvira and her team.

Even though their tents had buttons instead of zippers and their equipment is old, they had a strong sense of self determination and seemed to believe they would do it.

Possibly the one who believed for most, though, was Vladimir Elvira's thirty seven year old husband, another master of sport and a trainer of the Soviet Mountaineering Federation in Moscow.

He was one of sixty Soviet climbers in the camp, and over the coming weeks he and the others all prepared for the climb, with the Soviet and Western base camp separated only by a small stream.

During this time, trial runs, equipment tests, acclimatization, and physical training filled much of the month until the August attempts began to grow near All the while, the mountain loomed collecting fresh snowfall in the unfavorable weather, and more modern avalanches came down with regular earthquakes in the region.

In fact, one of them, not even a single day after Molly and her group made it back down, hit two Americans scudding a path, then another swept in and beard two others that came to their rescue minutes later.

Sadly, one of the climbers in the first group was seriously injured in the first avalanche.

The other three men tried to assust to him, but they were unable to save him, and even though the other three men were unscathed by the avalanche, they were stranded.

It was only thanks to a Soviet helicopter pilot and an American climber that supplies could be dropped by air, allowing them to survive two days on the face of the mountain.

Then elsewhere, a group of five climbers unrelated to the massive international groups suffered their own tragedy, with three dying in a different avalanche.

And yet despite these incidents, the bureaucratic weight of the large organized event continued.

So much effort had been spent setting up to climb that canceling it was more difficult than it should have been, or at the very least, groups are hopeful that their fortunes would be a little bit different than the others.

On the thirtieth of July, Elvier and her team were finished with their trials and formally set off for Camp one.

They took something known as the Lipkin route, which was slightly less common than the classic route through the frying Pan on the western side of the mountain's north side, but it would allow them to meet many of the climbers from that more popular side on the way down.

Like they intended with a traversal.

The climbing went well for several days, and on the third of August the group spent the whole day at Camp three.

From there it was only a long but gentle ridge up to the top of the mountain, technically not much work, worse than a regular hike, but still at a very high altitude and quite a long distance, just over three kilometers through thigh deep snow and ice.

The following day, on the fourth of August, a weather report came in of yet another approaching storm, and already an American team, including Allen The same Allan, who had already gotten stuck up to his neck, was between Camps two and three and reported white out conditions at fifty eight hundred meters or nineteen thousand feet the few days of relatively clear weather that Alvere and her team had taken to ascend it or about to close, but rather than turn back, they kept pushing up the mountain.

On that day, they were.

Seen about one hundred and twenty meters or four hundred feet below the summit by a Scottish clamber on his own.

The Scotsman had just been to the summit and traded greetings with the group on his way back down.

It wasn't until the next day, on the fifth, that the true severity of the storm became apparent.

Vitally Ablakhov, the base camp director, recommended by radio that all teams were turned to base camp due to how serious incoming storm was.

And this was the man who was known as the father or Soviet mountaineering, so he wasn't just some middle manager.

He was another master of sport and a sixty eight year old mechanical engineer with more climbing experience than most people in the mountain had years live up on the mountain.

However, Allan and his team of Americans just below Alvira's group that Camp four had no.

Idea about any of this.

Their radios had been confiscated by customs when they entered Kyrgystanders, so they were reduced to using a back up radio that one of the Soviet climbing groups had loaned them, and unfortunately it was unreliable along ranges and in severe weather.

Additionally, all the countries involved in the climb operated on their own frequencies, so this drastically slowed the spread.

Of useful information.

Alan and his team simply never received the message, and neither did an independent Japanese climbing team or the scotsmen, all on the same Lipkin route as Elvira's team.

But radio or not, they were all about to find out anyway.

The Russian all women team weren't the only ones, but the idea to try to beat the storm either.

After waiting so long, several teams had become impatient and saw the gap in the weather as their chance.

A Swiss team, which was another all women team like Alvira's, who also wanted to be the first all women team to Summit, set off in spite of other people at the camp urged them not to climb.

Before the group could reach the wide plateau of the summit, though The storm rolled and hard to run noon on the fifth and blotted out the midday sun.

One member of the team suddenly found herself climbing through white out conditions, nearly.

Lost in the void.

Miraculously, another American climber happened upon her after giving up his own attempt, and helped got her back down the mountain.

On the way down, the two encountered the rest of her team and one other Bavarian woman who traveled with them.

The American then urged them to give up the climb, but not all listened.

A twenty three year old photographer.

Named Ava refused to give up.

A few hours later elsewhere on the mountain, at five pm, Elvier's team reported by radio from the summit they'd actually managed to do it.

They were the first ever all female team to reach the peak, but unfortunately any celebration was short lived.

Unbeknownst them, the Swiss team was now lost in the blizzard less than a kilometer from them.

The weather had turned far worse than Elvier had hoped, and the eight women at the summit were now in full wet conditions with no shelter from the freezing wind, heavy snow, also began falling over the mountain.

In fact, conditions had worsened so much since Elvira's team began their clim that they could no longer see their path back down.

Even worse, the pathway to descend was a thin pointed ridge line in either direction.

Descending in high winds with next no visibility was essentially a death sentence.

This meant, for all intents and purposes, they were trapped on the summit, so realizing this was the case, they did their best to pitch tents and wait out the storm.

The following morning of the sixth of August, though, was even worse.

One hundred and thirty kilometer or eighty mile per hour winds screamed over the mountain, and a whole thirty centimeters or a foot of snow buried any trails or equipment that hadn't blown away on the first Not alone, they lost a number of tents, as did Allen's party farther down, with one of the tense metal frames even snapping in half because the winds.

By five pm on the same day, Alvira reported that one of her team members was sick, throwing up everything she tried to eat, and another seemed to be developing similar symptoms Vitalia than Radio Delvira to abandon the peak and find snow deep enough they could dig a cave in.

He knew without full protection from the wind, it wouldn't be long before they were overwhelmed.

He apparently even told them explicitly that if the sick party member could not be moved, they were to leave her behind.

The storm wasn't gonna lie up anytime soon, and they were not the only group stranded, with several others currently missing or out of contact.

As the group broke camp and made their way down, one of the women was given a safety rope to hold on for the others, said if they feul, someone would anchor them.

As she sat down and.

Braced herself to hold the rope, though she never stood up again and was the first to freeze to death.

On the side of the mountain and already suffering from the previous night, the women only made it a few hundred feet down the mountain before it became clear they couldn't go any further.

The snow was also still hard, and the layers undneath were brittle and granular and impossible to dig a cave inside.

So without hope of finding better shelter, the group once again made camp, losing even more of their limited equipment in the process.

Vitali urged them over the radio to keep.

Knowing that it wouldn't be enough, and Alvia responded that she would try, but later that day the two sick women passed away.

Then, to make things even worse, sometime in the evening, hurricane force winds slammed into the mountain peak and ripped away nearly everything else they had.

The tent poles broke.

Whole, packs of supplies became airborne and flew off the mountain, and anything that wasn't directly held in their hands was gone.

The five surviving women were reduced to three sleeping MiGs and a single canvas tent with no poles, flapping helplessly in some of the coldest harshest weather any of them had ever seen.

The next morning, the Japanese group on the same route overheard with the Russian transmissions and inferred that something was wrong at the summit, but not exactly what was happening.

Two of the four of them then tried to ascend to help, but the wind was still so strong that they could barely walk, never mind see, and they were forced back into their camp at sixty five.

Hundred meters by eight am that mornings.

Now on the seventh, Alvivra reported that three of the five remaining members were also sick, with only her and the other able bodied member refusing to abandon them.

They didn't know it at the time, but the storm they were in had turned out to be the worst storm to hit Lenin Peak in twenty five years.

Elsewhere, the photographer.

Ava of the Swiss team was also dead, just on the other side of the summit, having never seen it with her own eyes despite being so close, and dozens of more people were trying and failing to make their whip to assist.

By noon, Alvira reported that two more had died, one of them, apparently with her last words, asked when she would see flowers again, and another asked about her children.

A few hours later, at three thirty in the afternoon, Elvira's voice was noticeably disoriented over the radio, and she apologized for failing everyone.

Vitally pleaded with her to hold on and promised to rescue was coming, but it was still just impossible to do so.

At five pm, windspeeds had reached one hundred and sixty kilometers or one hundred miles per hour and negative forty degrees.

One more woman is thought to have died by then, and shortly after, around six thirty PM, Elvira said she would soon be too weak to press the transmit button.

The final message received on the radio was quote I'm alone now, which just a few minutes left.

See you in eternity end quote.

Twice more afterwards, someone pressed the button in the coming hours, trying to transmit, but it seems they were too.

Weak to say anything.

On the eighth of August, as the weather cleared, Alan and the American team finally came out of hiding in their tents and eagerly made their way up towards the summit, thinking they might finally have their chance.

He then recognized Elvira's coat in the distance as he approached, and at first thought she might have been taking a nap in the sun or even making snow angels, but as he called out, she didn't move.

Only when his team came closer did they noticed the trail of bodies, an entire team of people he'd only days before post for photographs with practiced alongside and got to.

Know all they did before them.

The Japanese team on the mountain arrived at nearly the same time and gave their more powerful radio to the Americans, who reported what they found.

But down at base camp it was just confirmation of the inevitable.

It seemed in the aftermath that Elvier tried to crawl down the mountain on her own.

At the very end above her, four more were so tightly packed with the tent that the fourth was only found a week later when a recovery team could pry them apart.

Then beyond that, the others also made a dotted line leading back to the summit, where the first loss still held the safety rope for her friends in an eternal, hopeless gesture.

All in all, thirteen people died during the period.

Of the expedition, for a wide variety of reasons, both due to mismanagement as well as personal choices.

Many of the climbers involved have spoken about the days leading up and about how the extra push to represent their nations led to choices they otherwise wouldn't have made.

Like for example, it's thought that Elvira's draft to prove her worth likely had them take a rest in the mountain to distance themselves from another group of male Russian clamors, and then later to make the fateful choice to push ahead of the weather.

The ultimate irony here is that she didn't really need to prove anything.

Elvira had already summoned multiple mountains with women only teams.

She'd already led dozens of expeditions.

She was also a master of sport in the Union.

Anyone who wasn't already convinced of her skill and that of her team wasn't going to have their mind changed by adding one more mount to the list.

Or maybe it wasn't even necessary about proving their worth as an all female team.

Often, being truly great at something requires a person to have some level of ego, that drive to push themselves and always do more than they already have.

Or maybe it was none of this.

It's easy to speculate in the aftermath of these instants that people reckless or misguided.

Maybe these were the same simple, weighted decisions we make on a daily basis, but they simply got made in a situation where the margins were thin and the stakes were life and death.

A week after the disaster, Elvira's husband, Vladimir, led a team to collect the bodies and bury them in two communal grapes.

He documented everything about the scene for investigation, and the next year petitioned the government for permission to recover the bodies.

This is something which for safety reasons is seldom done, but after the families of the climbers and public at large in the Soviet Union both widely supported the mission, Vladimir was granted special permission to do so.

He would then lead a team up into the mountains, including two female clambers inspired by his wife, in nineteen seventy five, who recovered all eight bodies.

They were then reburied down at the bays the mountain, next to a monument