Yeti: An Abominable History

Yeti: An Abominable History
Graham Hoyland

What leads us to believe in monsters? What happens when we meet the brutal creatures of our nightmares?Tales of the yeti, the ‘Abominable Snowman’ of the Himalayas, have been recorded for centuries. This huge, ape-like, hairy creature has tantalised explorers, mountaineers and locals with curious footprints and elusive appearances. But until recently, no one has been able to identify what this mythical creature might be, or even determine if it is real.On an expedition to the remote Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, Graham Hoyland found and filmed footprints of the mythical yeti in a part of the country that has never before been visited by Western explorers. In a lost valley near the unclimbed mountain Gangkar Punsum, Hoyland believes he was stalked by the mysterious yeti, a beast so unspeakably powerful that locals say it can kill a yak with one savage blow of its fist.As he delves into the fascinating history of this ancient legend, Hoyland hears tales of the yeti from Sherpas who have tried and failed to track it. He explores the literary hinterland behind the legend and searches for the yeti’s American cousin Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster and her African relative Mokèlé-Mbèmbé. From the dubious, mystical pseudo-science of the Nazis in the 1930s to our current era of ‘post-truth’ and ‘fake news’, Hoyland examines the age-old cultural phenomena that have shaped our collective consciousness and fuelled a belief in the existence of these monstrous creatures.

Copyright (#u95688069-2a9f-5f74-8222-5351f83d0ce2)

William Collins

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This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2018

Text © Graham Hoyland 2018

Photographs © Individual copyright holders

Cover fur © Photoshop

Jacket design by Jack Smyth

Graham Hoyland asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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Source ISBN: 9780008279493

Ebook Edition © May 2018 ISBN: 9780008279516

Version: 2018-04-27

Dedication (#u95688069-2a9f-5f74-8222-5351f83d0ce2)

To the seekers after truth

Contents

Cover (#u52f834c7-5d42-5ee9-ad52-19dc65cbeefa)

Title Page (#u87b34293-f77f-55bc-aa3e-839a0e3858ac)

Copyright

Dedication

Introduction

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Footnotes

Bibliography

Index

Acknowledgements

Picture Credits

Also by Graham Hoyland

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Introduction (#u95688069-2a9f-5f74-8222-5351f83d0ce2)

October 2016

The footprints in the snow were large, bigger than a human’s, with clearly defined toes. There was no sign of claw-marks. These prints looked as though they had been made only minutes before we arrived. I shivered and glanced around the deserted valley. We were the first Westerners ever to see this place, and we really hadn’t meant to come here.

Our expedition was in trouble. We had been trying to reach Gangkar Punsum, the world’s highest unclimbed mountain. This lies on the Tibetan border in Bhutan, the Himalayan kingdom to the east of Kathmandu which is rarely visited by Westerners. The weather had been the worst in living memory, with rain or snow on every single day since leaving Thimpu, the capital. On day three, our packhorses were attacked by wild bees, and then our leader had suffered a back injury and was now lying in a crude shelter in the jungle four days behind, tended by our doctor. Our problem was that the high pass we had just crossed was now closed to our yaks by heavy snow. We couldn’t retreat that way, and the passes towards the mountain were closed too. We were trapped, and the 25 yaks only carried supplies for three weeks. We had to get out before winter set in. As the five remaining Westerners, we could have attempted to re-cross the pass, leaving the yaks behind, but as acting leader I was unhappy about splitting the party even further. We had to stay with our tents and food. We also had a whole yak-herder family with us, including a young mother nursing an 8-month-old baby, so it was clear that we had to sink or swim together.