Abominable Snowman Tracks Found (1952)

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This is an interesting article about Eric Shipton, British Expeditioner in the Himalayas. During his treks, he found strange footprints at 19,000 feet and followed them for a mile or so. Sighting reports were also mentioned by some of the natives on his team and a detailed description of the creature's appearance is included.

Waukesha Daily Freeman - Wednesday, December 31, 1952
Mountain Expert Tells Of Strange Experience

LONDON (UP) - The Swiss Mr. Everest expedition has come down scoffing at stories that an "abominable snowman" lives in the towering Himalaya peaks, but British mountain expert thinks it will take more than that to explain away the strange footprints he found.

Eric Shipton, leader of the British Everest expedition of 1951 and adviser to a projected 1953 climbing group, was the first an to bring back evidence that some beast is able to exist in the frozen snows at least 19,000 feet up in the Himalayas.

During the 1951 search for possible new ways up to the world's highest peak he photographed two sets of weird footprints which one of his native bearers claimed were those of "wild men."

Shipton, veteran of a half-dozen Himalaya expeditions, has cautiously related his discovery of the tracks in a new book entitled "The Mount Evert Reconnaissance Expedition 1951"

He was asked today whether the tracks he photographed were those of a lost animal, which blundered up into the heights, or of some sort in Tibetan, translates to "the abominable snowman."

"The only remotely plausible explanation of the tracks I have heard is that they were made by a langur monkey," Shipton replied.

"But this isn't very convincing and I believe those who suggested it would be the first to admit it. I frankly don't know what made the tracks."

Shipton said his party came across the footprints on one of the glaciers of the Meniung Basin at about 19,000 feet. They followed them for a mile or so but went no further because they were carrying heavy loads and had an important reconnaissance to make.

"I have in the past found many sets of these curious footprints and have tried to follow them," Shipton said, "but have always lost them on the moraine or rocks at the side of the glacier."

The explorer said these particular tracks seemed to be very fresh, probably not more than 24 hours old.

"Sen. Tensing (his chief native aid) had no doubts whatever that the creatures - for there had been at least two - that had made the tracks were wild men," Shipton said.

"He told me that two years before, he and a number of other men had seen one of them at a distance of about 25 yards at Thyangbochi.

"He described it as half-man, half-beast, standing about five feet six inches, with a tall, pointed head, its body covered with reddish-brown hair, but with a hairless face."