Kathkandu

A group of explorers say they have found fresh evidence of the mythical Yeti in the Nepalese Himalayas, stirring new excitement among those who believe the reputed snowman creature really exists. The explorers, belonging to the travel series Destination Truth said yesterday that they had found footprints of a Yeti while on a search for the elusive creature for their television documentary.

"Were doing night investigation near a riverbed about three night ago when one of our guides first saw the prints and alerted us," show host Josh Gates said."We cast the footprints and we all felt a little unable to explain what we really saw," Gates said showing off his Yeti footprint cast which showed a foot nearly two times as large as a human. The creature could have been up to 2.4m tall.

The prints were discovered a three day trek from Lukia, 250km north-west of Nepal's capital Kathmandu

Yeti Hunt

"A U.S.-based television channel investigating the existence of the legendary Yeti in Nepal has found footprints similar to those said to be that of the abominable snowman, the company said on Friday...One of the three footprints discovered on Wednesday is about one foot long, or is of similar size and appearance as shown in sketches of the mystical ape-like creature believed to live in snowy caves, the TV company said.

"It is very very similar," Josh Gates, host of the weekly travel adventure television series, told Reuters in Kathmandu after returning from the mountain."I don't believe it to be (that of) a bear. It is something of a mystery for us," said Gates, 30, an archaeologist by training....But no one has actually seen the creature nor has it been scientifically established that the Yeti exists."

Prints stoke Yeti talk

KATHMANDU -- A U.S.-based television channel investigating the existence of the legendary Yeti in Nepal has found footprints similar to those said to be that of the abominable snowman, the company said on Friday. A team of nine producers from Destination Truth, armed with infrared cameras, spent a week in the icy Khumbu region where Mount Everest is located and found the footprints on the bank of Manju river at a height of 2,850 meters (9,350 feet).

Yeti footprints!

KATHMANDU: An American TV host who travelled to the Himalayas to film a show on the mysterious yeti said on Sunday he took castings from three footprints that could prove the legendary giant ape exists and is living on Mount Everest. Josh Gates, the host of Sci Fi’s “Destination Truth” show, said he and his crew found three footprints Nov 28 when they were investigating reported yeti sightings by Sherpas and farmers living in the remote Khumbu region.

One print was clearly from a right foot with five toes, and was about 33 centimetres long, but the other two were only partial prints, Gates said. The footprints were found on rock and sand, he said. The TV crew planned to have the castings analysed in the United States, he said, without providing details.

Footprints seen around Mt.Everest stoke Yeti Mystery

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - A U.S.-based television channel investigating the existence of the legendary Yeti in Nepal has found footprints similar to those said to be that of the abominable snowman, the company said on Friday.

A team of nine producers from Destination Truth, armed with infrared cameras, spent a week in the icy Khumbu region where Mount Everest is located and found the footprints on the bank of Manju river at a height of 2,850 meters (9,350 feet). One of the three footprints discovered on Wednesday is about one foot long, or is of similar size and appearance as shown in sketches of the mystical ape-like creature believed to live in snowy caves, the TV company said.

"It is very very similar," Josh Gates, host of the weekly travel adventure television series, told Reuters in Kathmandu after returning from the mountain."I don't believe it to be (that of) a bear. It is something of a mystery for us," said Gates, 30, an archaeologist by training.Tales by sherpa porters and guides about the wild and hairy creatures lurking in the Himalayas have seized the imagination of foreign mountain climbers going to Mount Everest since the 1920s.

Several teams have searched for it and some have even claimed to have discovered footprints.But no one has actually seen the creature nor has it been scientifically established that the Yeti exists.Gates said the footprints on lumps of sandy soil, which would be sent to experts in the United States for analysis, were "relatively fresh left some 24 hours before we found them.""This print is so pristine, so good that I am very intrigued by this," Gates, flanked by his team members, said adding the findings would prompt more investigation into the Yeti.

Destination Truth chronicles some of the world's notorious crypto-zoological creatures and unexplained phenomena.Some local sherpas believe that the Himalayas are abodes of strange creatures and consider the Yeti as a protector while others say it is a destroyer."There is a kind of mysterious creature that lives in the Himalayas," said Ang Tshering Sherpa, chief of Nepal Mountaineering Association in Kathmandu, who hails from the Khumbhu region were Mount Everest is located.

Yeti footprints found in eastern Nepal
www.chinaview.cn 2007-12-01 13:37:06

KATHMANDU, Dec. 1 (Xinhua) -- A team of explorers has arrived in Nepal's capital with an exciting story of finding footprints of yeti near the base camp of Mt. Qomolangma, at Khumbu in eastern Nepal, The Himalayan Times reported on Saturday. "We are happy to say that we have found footprints of yeti. And the snowman is no more a legend for us now," Joshua Gates, the team leader of the expedition of the American television channel Destination Truth, told the media Friday.

Showing the model of the footprint, collected at the site, some200 km east of Kathmandu, he said that some scientific research would continue in the U.S. regarding its authenticity and other phases of exploration for further studies. The team, consisting of 9 Americans and 14 Nepalis, left Kathmandu on Nov. 24 and arrived here on Friday after the expedition. He said that the team found the footprints when it was returning from Khumbu by the confluence of Ghettekhola and Dudhkoshi rivers, near Monju village at a height of 2,850 meters.

It was Tul Bahadur Rai, assistant guide of the team, who first spotted the footprint by the riverbank. "It was the night of November 28. I cried in excitement when I saw the footprints. I called all the members and they took photographs and also made a model of the footprint, after they were convinced that it indeed was a footprint," he told the daily.He also said that one of the prints was around 12 inches long and others were smaller because the ground was not even and the prints were not clear.

This is not the first time, footprints of yeti, a species of hairy, humpbacked and dark giant biped ape, were found in Nepal's Himalayan valleys. In 1925 a Greek photographer, NA Tombazi, claimed that he had spotted an ape-like creature walking in the valley near Mt. Qomolangma.

Another noted explorer who claimed to have seen yeti was the father of Tenzing Norgay Sherpa, the first person to climb Mt. Qomolangma. Similarly, British mountaineers Eric Shipton and Michael Ward found the yeti footprints in 1951 near the border area.

Even Sir Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa guide, Tenzing Norgay, found giant footprints on the way up the top of Mt. Qomolangma, in 1953.

TV crew find 'yeti' footprints

An American TV presenter says he's found footprints that could belong to the mysterious Yeti creature. Josh Gates and his team spotted three footprints in the Everest region of Nepal during a night search. Rumours about the yeti, also known as the abominable snowman, have been around for years, but no one's ever found real proof of its existence. Each footprint was 33cm in length - longer than a ruler - with five toes that measured a total of 25cm across.

The TV crew work on a programme which investigates reports of fantastic creatures and are "very excited" about the find, although they are not saying they definitely believe they are yeti prints.The team took models of the three prints which will be examined by scientists in America. Reports of the mysterious yeti go back hundreds of years, and the creature is sometimes said to have special powers!