NEPAL
Yeti! Uh-huh!
A team of mountain climbers returned hurriedly to Kathmandu via helicopter in late November from near the Mount Everest base camp on the Nepali side. The reason for their excitement: they felt sure that they had found indisputable footprints of a yeti.
"We are happy to say that we have found footprints of yeti," announced Joshua Gates, the expedition's leader.
"The snowman is no more a legend for us now." Gates showed off a plaster mould that had been made of the alleged footprint, which measured 33 cm in length and 25 cm across (see pic). Gates said that the casts would be sent to the US for scientific study and assessment. The footprints were reportedly found near the confluence of the Dudhkoshi and Ghattekhola rivers in Khumbu, 150 km east of Kathmandu, at a height of 2850 metres.
Before the ink had dried, wildlife experts in Nepal were pouring cold water on the claim – and not just because the expedition had been on Everest to tape a science-fiction programme. To begin with, these could easily have been the prints of a Himalayan black bear, while it is also easy to mistake patches on the snow or mud as footprints. The head of the Nepal Mountaineering Association, Ang Tshering Sherpa, also pointed to past 'knowledge' of the yeti to further disprove the new find, noting that while the beast is traditionally believed to have only four toes, the prints found by the Gates expedition had five.