Isn't this more of a continuation of the Snow Slab theory? They set up the tent for the night and the high winds dislodged the slab and caused it to smash into the tent, forcing the students to cut their way out and seek alternate shelter. The bit about the students trying to shovel snow on top of the tent that they had just cut up in an attempt to stabilize it is dubious IMHO. Plus if they had time to dig snow they had time to grab their coats and boots. The reason they ran away in their night clothes is because they thought they were about to be hit by a real avalanche and also their gear was buried under a huge clump of snow.

The rest of the story about how one set of students tried to build a fire out in the open but it wasn't enough to save off the freezing wind and the other group tried to build a biovac out of a snowbank and were crushed when it collapsed is completely plausible. It even makes sense if they thought the slope was about to avalanche, it would be too risky to try to go back and retrieve the gear, even as they were literally freezing to death.

You don't run downhill from a pending avalanche, and the footprints going down from the tent don't indicate any running or falling, which would be likely in those conditions at night.

The Katabatic Wind says they thought the tent was about to be destroyed by the wind, exposing them to deadly cold from the high winds. So they sought shelter in the forest below. It's one of several wind theories. But agreed that if they had the teime to stabalize the tent with packed snow, they had time to grab their shoes and warmer clothing. All the theories are flawed in one way or another.

They ran to the nearest forest to escape the pending avalanche. It probably wasn't quite so cold at the moment they started to flee, but then the wind kicked up and the temperature dropped precipitously.