Yeti Exhibition

Below are photos from the International Mountain Museum (IMM) in Pokhara, Nepal. This museum explains all about the 14 highest mountains in the world…all of them are at least 8,000 meters in height! Those interested in mountaineering would come to Pokhara as most of the trekking routes start from there.

Out of the top 14 mountains, 8 are within Nepal! Since 1920 (when mountaineering was still new to the world) many researchers would come to this beautiful country to do research on things like how the mountains were formed…what the exact height of the mountain is…what minerals can be found there etc.

The Museum Hall building covers a total floor area of 4242 sq. meters of the total 12.5 acres of the land owned by the Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA) for the IMM Project. There are 2 main exhibition halls: Hall of the Great Himalaya and Hall of World Mountains.

These halls exhibited mannequins of famous climbers, the original gear and equipment that they had used (of many of the first Himalayan ascents!), graphical posters of the top 14 mountains and geological findings amongst many others. It is a big building and it covers quite an extensive range of things inc. the different ethnic groups of Nepal and a showroom of what a Tibetan monastery prayer hall looks like.

In one of the sections of the Museum Hall is a small exhibition on Yetis!

Yeti sightings were so common amongst mountaineers that the NMA decided to collect all the information on Yetis from Himalayan mountaineers and compile them into a short display. The display tells stories about the thoughts and beliefs of famous researchers and writers, and the remarks of the local people who had encountered Yetis. I am not interested in mountain climbing at all, but I like this part of the Museum tremendously. Would love to check it out.

There are individual photos of each wall display. Do take a look!

Tsem Rinpoche

(click on the individual photos to enlarge)

(full-shot of the display)

The Monk and the Yeti

Ang Dawa, Gyalzen Norbu, and Peter Byrne found a set of deep Yeti footprints at about 10,000 feet during the 1957 Slick Yeti Reconnaissance

Tom Slick discovered this Nepalese Yeti footprint measuring ten by seven inches in the mud during the 1957

Location Map of Tom Slick Yeti Expedition

Sir E. Hillary showed the sketch of Yeti based on eyewitness account. The sketch was adapted from one of Heuvelmans' One the Track of Unknown Animals

Bryan Byrne examines Yeti tracks found at 10,000 feet in the Arun Valley of the Himalayas in March during 1959

Hand of Yeti: in Pamboche, 1959. Photographed by Prof. Teizo Ogawa

Hand of Yeti: in Panboche, 1958. Photographed by Slick Johnson Snowman

The footprint of Yeti

Yeti: Footprints

Area of the Yeti Sightings

Shipton's party found fresh tracks providing evidence of the existence of the Yeti

Nanda Devi, 1934 at Satopanth Glacier. They saw one bear close-to, and the Sherpa's were terrified, thinking it was a Yeti

Everest from the South, 1951. They found the creature's foot in the Menlung Glacier

Footprints of Yeti, found in 1951 on Menlung Glacier, West of Everest by E. Shipton

Two men holding a stuffed chemo near a monastery

The footprint that started Reinhold Messner on his quest for the Yeti

A chemo paw

A so-called Yeti scalp from the monastery of Pangboche

A stamp of the Kingdom of Bhutan, depicting the Yeti as a kind of Himalayan King Kong

A fresh footprint in the mud next to young barley plants

In a ritual dance, the stuffed chemo becomes the Yeti

Conclusion Display 1

Conclusion Display 2

Conclusion Display 3

I certainly do not agree with their conclusions. But it’s ok. Even my assistant Monlam spotted a Yeti when he was in Tibet he told me. It is very common to sight them in Tibet. Tibetans do not make a big deal of it as they KNOW YETIS exist.

The photos were taken by one of my students who went there recently. I mean no infringements. I have posted this here strictly for non-commercial reasons, but to share with my friends.