A team of Japanese climbers claim to have discovered the footprint of the Yeti, or Abominable Snowman, in the Himalayas. The above photo purports to be the Yeti footprint (left) and a human foot print (right) — apparently stepping in snow barefoot in the Himalayas is just the price of doing business in cryptozoology, people.
According to the Guardian:
‘The creature’s footprints were found on snow at an altitude of about 4,800 metres (15,748 feet) in the Dhaulagiri mountain range in west Nepal…. The team said they have become adept at recognising the various beasts such as bear and snow leopards and are adamant that the ‘footprint’ was ‘none of those.’
‘Although the climbers spent more than 40 days on Dhaulagiri IV – a 7,661 metre (25,135-foot) peak where they say they have seen traces of yetis in the past – they could not furnish the press with a single photograph of the Yeti. ‘If I don’t believe in Yeti I would never come,’ said Yagihara.
‘Nepali Sherpas say the legend of the Yeti rests deep in the Himalayan psyche. Tales of wild hairy giants living in the snow are part of growing up in the mountains. These prompted many, including Sir Edmund Hillary, to carry out yeti hunts.
‘The Yeti is also considered more than a myth by the world of cryptozoology, the study of uncatalogued creatures, which takes seriously the idea that the alleged creature may be the last fragments of a race of giant man-apes that existed in central Asia more than 300,000 years ago.’