High up in the peaks of the Himalayas, a footprint in the snow baffles a mountaineer as he attempts to climb Everest for the first time. Pulling out his camera, he prepares to snap a shot, eyeing the horizon nervously before placing his icepick down alongside the print for scale and bringing the viewfinder up to his eye. In India, a tea planter reads about the photograph in a local newspaper and turns over the idea of going to hunt the creature that made the tracks, completely unaware that he was about to start what would eventually become a lifelong mission. On the other side of the world, a Texas oil baron reads about tales of adventure high up in the mountains of Nepal, a mystical land of incense and meditation, and dreams of uncovering the mysteries of the wilds. The trio was, it's safe to say, a fairly unlikely crew, but their fates would become intimately linked by a search that would carry them halfway around the world, hole up in damp caves for days on end and pull off one of the most unusual heists in all of history. It was a search for a myth, a symbol and a monster. It was a search for the Yeti.

 

SOURCES

 

Coleman, Loren (2002) Tom Slick: True Life Encounters in Cryptozoology. Craven Street Books, Fresno, CA, USA.

 

Taylor, Daniel C. (2018) Yeti: The Ecology of a Mystery. Oxford University Press, UK.

 

Waddell, Laurance A. (1899) Among The Himalayas. Archibald Constable & Co. UK.

 

Liechty, Mark (2017) Far Out: Countercultural Seekers and the Tourist Encounter in Nepal. The University of Chicago Press, IL, USA.

 

McGarr, Paul M. (2013) The Cold War in South Asia: Britain, The United States & The Indian Subcontinent, 1945-1965. Cambridge University Press, UK.

 

Princep, James (1832) The Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Volume 1. Baptist Mission Press, Calcutta, India.

 

Redfern, Nick (2016) The Bigfoot Book: The Encyclopaedia of Sasquatch, Yeti, and Cryptid Primates. Visible Ink Press, MI, USA.

 

Dundee Courier (1951) Everest Has A Monster: Britons Find Footprints. Dundee Courier, Tuesday 04 December 1951, Page 3. Dundee, UK.

 

Star Tribune (1921) Snowman! Star Tribune, Saturday 17 December 1921, p.20. Minneapolis, MN, USA.

 

The Sphere (1954) The Abominable Snowman. Saturday 02 January 1954, p14. London, UK.

 

The Press and Sun Bulletin (1961) Yeti Belongs in Legend Says Hillary, Disposing of Track, Scalp Evidence. The Press and Sun Bulletin, 10th January 1961, p.49. New York, USA