Over 6’ tall, heavily muscled and covered with thick, coarse, brown hair. No, we aren’t talking about the editor; this is the description of the Yeti according to the local Sherpas. Many will laugh and smile if you mention him; others will tell you scary ghost stories with a playful glint in their eyes; a select few will fall deathly silent – even among those who live in the Himalayas no one can agree if the mountain man exists, but those lucky, or unlucky, enough to lay eyes on the beast never forget the experience, that much is clear.
Many visitors to the region claim to have seen the creature, but the Western world first started paying real attention when Eric Shipton photographed a series of large footprints when attempting to scale Everest in 1951. Edmund Hillary also reported seeing a series of huge footprints in 1953 and the following year the Daily Mail launched an expedition to find the creature (possibly the only good thing the newspaper has ever done). To this day, the Yeti remains a mystery – not a surprise seeing as 90% of the Himalayas above 14,000ft remain unexplored – but as more and more travellers go to the region with high tech modern cameras it is likely that if the Yeti does exist someone will eventually bring back proof, and the gap year story to trump all others.Over 6’ tall, heavily muscled and covered with thick, coarse, brown hair. No, we aren’t talking about the editor; this is the description of the Yeti according to the local Sherpas. Many will laugh and smile if you mention him; others will tell you scary ghost stories with a playful glint in their eyes; a select few will fall deathly silent – even among those who live in the Himalayas no one can agree if the mountain man exists, but those lucky, or unlucky, enough to lay eyes on the beast never forget the experience, that much is clear.
Many visitors to the region claim to have seen the creature, but the Western world first started paying real attention when Eric Shipton photographed a series of large footprints when attempting to scale Everest in 1951. Edmund Hillary also reported seeing a series of huge footprints in 1953 and the following year the Daily Mail launched an expedition to find the creature (possibly the only good thing the newspaper has ever done). To this day, the Yeti remains a mystery – not a surprise seeing as 90% of the Himalayas above 14,000ft remain unexplored – but as more and more travellers go to the region with high tech modern cameras it is likely that if the Yeti does exist someone will eventually bring back proof, and the gap year story to trump all others.
