The Khumjung Scalp And Edmund Hillary’s Hunt For The Yeti
Nuno Nogueira/Wikimedia Commons The alleged Yeti scalp of Nepal’s Khumjung monastery, introduced to the Western world by famed explorer Edmund Hillary.
In 1953, building upon Shipton’s reconnaissance, Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Nepalese Sherpa Tenzig Norgay completed what is perhaps history’s greatest feat of exploration when they became the first people to summit Everest.
But while Hillary’s mountaineering is known the world over, few realize that he was also, for a time, one of the world’s foremost Yeti hunters.
In the course of Hillary’s historic ascent, he claimed to have spotted mysterious footprints in the snow on the Barun Khola mountain range, which Norgay believed came from a Yeti. However, unlike Shipton, Hillary didn’t photograph them, leaving that alleged Yeti evidence (along with the Yeti hair he’d supposedly found in the Himalayas the year before) lost to history.
Still, Hillary’s fascination with finding the Yeti had not been snuffed out.
In 1960, Hillary launched a full-fledged Yeti hunting expedition into the mountains of Nepal. While there, Hillary and his team visited a monastery in the village of Khumjung. There they acquired a purported Yeti scalp that had been in the village’s possession for over 200 years.
Upon Hillary’s return to London, the world was abuzz at this incredible piece of Yeti evidence — only to be let down after scientists quickly found that the “scalp” was actually the hide of a serow goat.
The “scalp” has since returned to the monastery, where it remains to this day.
As for Hillary, he ultimately concluded that many of the phenomena attributed to the Yeti had rational explanations rooted in local fauna and environmental factors. He stated, later, “The Yeti is not a strange, superhuman creature as has been imagined. We have found rational explanations for most Yeti phenomena.”
But while Hillary’s faith in the Yeti may have wavered, other evidence only reinforced that belief for others.
