Born Rich

Guys associated with mountaineering, travel and exploration are quite familiar with ‘Yeti.’ The mysterious footprint dubbed Yeti was photographed in the Nepal- Tibet border region of the Himalayas in 1951 by a team of mountaineers heading for Everest. The photograph of footprint with mountain boot alongside taken by Eric Earle Shipton is inscribed by Tom Bourdillon in ink on the reverse:

Dear Mick. Here are the footprint photos: sorry for the delay. We came across them on a high pass on the Nepal-Tibet watershed during the 1951 Everest expedition. They seemed to have come over a secondary pass at about 19,500 ft, down to 19,000 ft where we first saw them, and then went on down the glacier. We followed them for the better part of a mile. What it is, I don’t know, but I am quite clear that it is no animal known to live in the Himalaya, & that it is big.

The story of an Abdominal Snowman dates back to 1925. The Yeti was first seen in 1925 by N A Tomaz, a member of the Royal Geographic Society on an expedition in the Himalayas. After the incident, a debate caught the wind over the creature’s existence. In the year 1960, Edmund Hillary mounted an expedition to collect and evaluate evidence of the Yeti. British mountaineer Don Whillans strolgly believed that he encountered the Yeti while scaling Annapurna in 1970. He observed a few human-like footprints in the snow around his camp one morning. He also claimed to see a bipedal, ape-like creature for about 20 minutes the same evening with his binoculars.

The unexplained photographs were a part of Christie’s auction in London, themed on exploration and travel. The Yeti has now been sold for £3,500.

via Metro / Christie’s