WHY would people migrate to a barren, frigid, inhospitable place where food doesn’t grow and it’s a challenge every day to survive? Food was plentiful at sea level and survival was far easier.
Because it makes absolutely zero sense, I postulate they were Democrats.
Chased up there by by somebody else.
I postulate that there was war or a hostile population at lower elevations, and that these people were bandits or a revolutionary faction.
But don’t examine my theory just because it fits a pattern that has been reppeated over and over throughout history.
The first Darwin award winners. Nothing more. Nothing less.