Yeti- The Ecology of a Mystery

by Daniel C Taylor

  AS THE MOON RISES, I ROLL OUT my sleeping bag. On this ridge, a ‘Yeti’ walked by Cronin and McNeely’s tents twelve years earlier. They had camped by a pond. Our site is almost identical, a few miles lower on the same ridge, and by a pond from which we’ve taken cooking water for the supper. If tonight a Yeti walks by, inside a tent is not where I want to be. So I tell the others as I unroll my sleeping bag: ‘Tirtha told me to look out across the valley tonight.’ But to be ready, I set a powerful spotlight near my head.

  For Cronin and McNeely, the visitor probably came because it smelled food. Or did the Yeti come because it was headed to that pond? Water on a ridgetop? I hadn’t thought about this—ridgetops in the Barun seem to be the only places with ponds. In this valley why aren’t there any ponds on the mountain slopes?

  About 20 feet downwind, I place a jar of peanut butter, lid unscrewed. I crumple a paper to make noise and tie that to my sleeping bag. I then connect to that open jar with a string, so that if something starts to take that jar the crumpled paper might awaken me but certainly will the pull on the string.

  Ponds must be on these ridges because the sedimentary rock layers of the Himalaya lie horizontally, causing the water that seeps in higher on the ridge to slide along a shield to exit in ridge depressions, creating these pockets of water in the sky. A raindrop, pond drop, ocean drop—scale changes of water in planetary systems. I look at the stars contemplating my special space and time.

  At 5:00 a.m. my alarm chirps again. Sitting up, a snow-dusted sleeping bag drawn round my shoulders, I sweep my surroundings with the powerful flashlight. No fire yet burns at the cook site. Not even mice prints show in the snow around the food packs. Nothing has approached the peanut-butter jar. I look at the stars. We’re at 15,100 feet, higher than any land in America’s lower forty-eight states or in Europe. There is 40 per cent less air here than on the plains of India below. It seems I can almost touch the stars. But I have awoken to go even higher. Unzipping, a shock of cold flows into my sleeping bag. I pull out my warm, pliable boots from the bag’s bottom and then clomp over to the Craigheads’ tent.

  Soon Derek and I are climbing. Yesterday, while waiting on the ridge for others to arrive, clouds opened and I looked into the massive face of the fifth-highest mountain in the world. Its summit was 2 miles above, about the same vertical distance as to the Arun Valley below. In that view I realized the chance to see this mountain grow out of the night into the light, the sun flooding the summits of the world. As Derek and I climb, I calculate that Makalu’s face has beheld 13,650,000 sunrises. Now he and I are about to share her 13,650,001st.

  Though an hour still before sunrise, a glow ebbs behind over the planet. The two of us hurry as best as our pumping lungs allow. On Kangchenjunga, which is 20 miles behind us, a glow starts on the earth’s third-highest mountain. As we arrive at the ridge crest, it feels like we are at a lookout atop the planet. Then light sparkles on Makalu’s summit, like a bulb shining atop a Christmas tree, and starts washing the mountain in different hues: first amber, then yellow, draping the brown rock and white snow. Colours brighten until rich yellows flood the birch in front of me and warm my back.

  In reality, the sun never comes ‘up’ in sunrise. The earth rolls bringing the sun into sight. As a boy after we’d returned to America in 1957, a neighbour several streets over, the unorthodox architect Buckminster (Bucky) Fuller, told me that the moment when the sun is seen from our turning earth can be accurately described as ‘sunsight’. His and my friendship grew after I had once stumbled into his backyard. Thereafter, on Saturdays and afternoons I helped him assemble an early geodesic dome. When the sun slips from view, he said, call it a ‘sunclipse’.

  Bucky was helping me see the earth in relation to things. One of his points was to understand that home is more an experience than a place--that helped me learn about my life turning and growing in me. Sunsight can be understood as an experience too: suppose we are riding a car through a dark street. As a corner approaches a glow may come from a side street, getting brighter as we approach a direct view of the light on that street. That is like the sun as the world rolls, and as on certain streets reflections can be seen off building surfaces like the false sunsights on those days when the atmosphere works as a mirror.

  Today the sun preannounces her dawning. First comes the astronomical dawn: the world lightening in the east but dark still in the west when the sun is eighteen degrees below the horizon. Nautical dawn follows when horizons around and objects on the land are seen; the sun now twelve degrees below the horizon. Civil dawn comes when our world is lit but has no shadows: this is the time of dramatic reds against a dark sky, then warming yellows against a bluing sky. After that, here comes the sun, and with its warmth we say it’s all right. And especially after a cold Himalayan night, its coming seems like it’s been here for years.

  Some time later, John, Bob, Dave, Tirtha, and Kazi arrive on the ridge. They pull out their cameras and take the morning pictures. Binoculars search back and forth, surveying the south-facing slope, stopping to look more carefully at exposed rocks, seeking the flick of an ear or any abnormal animated colour on rocks. The sun has been on that slope for three hours now and animals should start coming out.

  ‘Hey look, a cave!’ Derek points up-valley.

  Why didn’t I see this cave, I wonder, when I worked that part of the slope with my binocs?

  ‘What a cave!’ John studies it. ‘Look, there’s a stream not 20 yards from the entrance, a cave with running water. Grassy ledge in front for sunning. Damn, what a cave. There is a meadow in the valley below—all sorts of animals will feed there. Bamboo higher up for fresh shoots. Dan’l, how long would it take to get over?’

  ‘From here, maybe three days. I’m surely tempted to switch towards getting there—the cave’s an animal magnet. It must be the sanctum sanctorum for whatever animals there are in this valley. That hideaway is the place to look.’

  ‘Wait, Dan’l,’ John says. ‘You’re again sounding as though you’re thinking about the chances of finding a Yeti here. You and I have been over all this before. A species cannot survive with just a mommy and a daddy. With the grizzly bear we’ve shown that it takes a population of at least two-dozen individuals. When numbers drop below the minimum for each species, it dies out. If you’re interested in the Yeti, don’t look in the jungle; rather, do the maths. You’re not looking for one individual but for a population. And you need a habitat of adequate area to support a population.

  ‘See the area of this valley. Two-to-three dozen bears are all this whole Barun Valley could support, and we’re finding an impressive amount of bear evidence. If Yetis were here, a minimum viable population would also be about two dozen. And what evidence would such a population leave if it were here?

  ‘That cave, though, looks like a bear’s habitat. This valley we’re looking into, higher than the jungle we’ve been in, is the first bearlike wilderness I’ve seen in Nepal. Why I came here—beyond the mystery of the tree bear—is to see how these bears are able to live with a habitat so reduced. Does the Barun give a lesson for how to pack a lot of bears into a small space? Around that cave is what I’d call a significant bear habitat.’

  An hour later we descend to Makalu Jungli Hot’l. Traps must be checked, re-baited with smelly meat. A good stink, the Craigheads have found, is the way to snare a bear. However, as we descend, I wonder about that cave. Can a helicopter get there? I will be using a chopper soon to start surveying this all into a national park.

  BACK AT MAKALU JUNGLI HOT’L, SITTING BY THE FIRE, Lendoop and Myang turn the talk to the festival approaching in two months. Thousands of Hindu pilgrims arrive, especially Brahmins from the bazaars of Chainpur, Dhankuta, and Khandbari, for Barun waters are believed to be exceptionally pure.

  ‘All are not pilgrims,’ Lendoop explains to me. ‘Myang is part of a group that sells chang or rakshi, corn cakes, and lamp oil. Others from our villages offer meals of rice and lentils. When Myang sells the jugs of c
hang his wife makes, or drinks it himself, he has fun.’

  I quietly wonder how Lendoop with his debts will find money for the festival.

  ‘Making money is harder now,’ Myang inserts. ‘Sellers travel festival to festival. The cloth sellers cheat us; they are not like the shopkeepers in Khandbari whose idea is to make you happy so that others from your village also visit their shop. These peddlers guess how many rupees each villager can pay. They keep the good-quality cloth in the front. But after you order, they give you the not-so-good cloth kept at the back.’

  ‘The merchants work together,’ Lendoop adds. ‘Next to the cloth seller a tailor sets up; the tailors are low-caste people who carry hand-powered sewing machines and stich really fast. They never go over a seam twice; soon I have to repair each shirt or pants myself.’

  ‘With the cloth merchants come trinket merchants,’ adds Myang. ‘Peddlers from India who sell beads, soap, cigarettes, candles, combs, and mirrors. When I was a boy from India, only pilgrims would come. Maybe this year I won’t sell chang. My wife will, and I’ll have a place for a free refill.’ He and Lendoop laugh uproariously.

  Lendoop continues, ‘The good girls get drunk, and the best get presents. As the evening progresses, men join the chorus line, inviting themselves, other men join invited by the women. One singer leads with a song line, which is chorused by others. As the night deepens, couples sneak into the bushes.’

  Pasang fills me in with the details. ‘The girls walk past the trinket sellers very slowly as they head towards the dark. Sometimes their man then is helpful.’

  Myang’s turns to me in the firelight: ‘You’re not laughing, sahib? What’s wrong.’

  My face flushes as I reply, ‘I was thinking about your wife. She is selling the chang.’

  Silence slams into our once-happy fire circle.

  But Myang quickly breaks the silence. ‘Sahib, each of us has our own pleasures, which we may overindulge in. I have seen you take many things in excess. Maybe my wife is not happy selling the chang. You did not ask, but maybe she, too, has her own indulgences.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Myang. I spoke too strongly.’

  ‘No, I did not speak strongly enough.’ Anger rises in Myang’s voice. He is used to being obeyed not only by his family but also by his village folk. ‘All of us overindulge in things we are fond of. You too, as I have said, … having too much money. You ask whether I think about my wife. I do, but have you thought how we feel when we watch you have so much food, use so many clothes, and then pay us so little?’

  ‘Yes, Myang … and it makes me embarrassed.’

  Pasang’s teapot bubbles. After some time he ladles sweet tea into white enamel mugs, nicked and dented from a month of use in the jungle.

  Each of us sucks from the hot cups. In drinking tea we share the communion rite of the Indian subcontinent. Tea is the common denominator shared by this land’s hundreds of millions, the beverage that crosses caste boundaries. The fire flickers; its unifying flame bridging our diversity—flames holding us into its warm radius, while sipping from chipped chalices reunites us.

  Pasang’s son Tashi (a pharmacist, a painter, a superb interviewer, a promising ornithologist—mostly all self-taught) gently moves us into a less risky territory, ‘Lendoop, some people say the caves here in the Barun are doorways to Shambhala, a valley of enlightenment. They say if you find one of those caves, you do not need pretty girls any more—the happiness of one night lasts forever.’

  ‘Yes, I have heard of such caves. One is Khembalung in the Apsuwa Valley. It will take us a three-day walk from here.’

  ‘Have you entered such a cave, Lendoop?’ Tashi rejoins. ‘Or known anyone? Did enlightenment come to anyone?’

  ‘I have gone into many caves: holy caves and caves inhabited by animals. Not one of them was interesting. But maybe I did not go with the right frame of mind. Years ago, a lama from our village went into the Khembalung cave; he never came out. His metal bowl and a sleeping blanket were found at the entrance. Perhaps he entered Shambhala and enlightenment.’

  I join, ‘Lendoop, do you know any other times people entered such caves?’

  Myang answers, ‘I do. My brother had a friend who kept his yaks in the Mangrwa meadows. This is a wild valley with a big waterfall. One day my brother’s friend fell asleep, and the yaks wandered away. Sharp screams awakened him. He looked to a cliff where he saw a fire burning in front of a cave and smoke rising from it. A shockpa and a man wrestled with each other by the fire. First the man would look like a shockpa, then, as they wrestled more, there was screaming and they changed with man becoming shockpa and shockpa then a man. However, suddenly the shockpa was thrown into the cave, and the man ran in after it. The cave door then closed suddenly, and the cliff ledge was now just a cliff.’

  ‘Did your brother’s friend investigate?’

  ‘Although he was afraid, he went right away. But first he lit a big torch to protect him. Shockpas are afraid of light, you know.’

  ‘A fire torch in the daylight?’

  ‘Yes, shockpas are afraid of the power of light—that is why I carry this old battery,’ said Myang, pulling the battery out of his pocket. ‘That was why my brother’s friend lit the torch as he climbed to the ledge.’

  ‘What did he find?’

  ‘Blood on the ledge; fresh blood in three small pools. The door to the cave could not be seen although he was standing where he had seen it earlier.’

  My companions have all imperceptibly crowded in closer to our fire. ‘Lendoop, do you know any caves up the Barun Valley?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes, but I do not know this cave in the Mangrwa. I have heard this story. I have talked to the Hatiya man whom Myang describes, but I do not know his cave. Myang has already told you, the door closed. The only big cave I know in this valley is the one below Makalu Base Camp. Near that cave a snow leopard in the rock guards the route.’

  ‘I’ve heard of that snow leopard and cave,’ I reply. ‘Do you know any other caves up the valley? Maybe one with a stream nearby?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you see that big cave this morning? Is there a trail that leads there?’

  ‘I saw that cave. Never have I seen it before, and never have I heard of anyone going there. Somehow, today the door of that cave opened, but it was not there any time I’ve looked at that cliff. That is what Myang was saying. Doors open in rock walls. The mountains look steady but they are alive. Sometimes the mountains shake. You saw solid rock open today. Tomorrow if we go back, that door in the mountain may have closed. No, there is no trail to that cave. The mountains are alive with strange lives.’

  thirteen

  Bears and Bioresilience

  13.1 Unnamed Summit on Northern Ridge of Barun Valley

  Source: Author

  December 4, 1984. Tirtha and I sit under a large maple. Near-at-hand, his plant presses wait for leaves now in two bulging knapsacks. Lendoop takes sprigs from the packs, then one-by-one unfolds the leaves on each, meticulously stacking specimens into little piles, holding down each pile with pebbles.

  These are the last plants Tirtha will collect. To take its assigned place in Nepal’s Royal Herbarium, each specimen must now be spread between newspaper pages and pressed in one of his presses. It is routine work the botanist has done thousands of times. His fingers sort, flatten, and order the leaves. There is a lot of time for us to sit under this maple, for finishing the leaves will run through tomorrow. Then our expedition walks out of this jungle.

  Tirtha asks, ‘Dan’l, you often mention your proposal, bioresilience. What brought you to this?’

  ‘Tirtha, living with nature and being a mountain climber, I came to realize that one of biology’s assertions did not fit what I was seeing.’ Leaves flutter to the ground as Lendoop shakes a now-empty field pack and adds them according to type into the little stacks.

  ‘After my doctoral work, I took some classes at the Yale School of Forestry. Class and books taught strength of ecosystems came f
rom a diversity of species—and that diverse systems are more robust. But I’m a mountaineer. Climbers do a lot of thinking as they catch their breath and take in the views. And if you are paying attention to the biology you climb, it is obvious the higher one climbs that species grow tougher.

  ‘I saw a contrast. Species numbers become fewer as altitude is gained, but each species is more robust. I termed this bioresilience. This name was in direct response to a word then used by biologists: biodiversity. Tropical biologists were arguing genetic diversity, many species filling many different niches, created biological strength. I do not argue that—but that is like measuring something by how wide it is without realizing things can be measured by how tall also.’

  Tirtha smiles, ‘Each looks at the world from his own perspective. Look what I do now. I am a biologist so I am defining the Barun by counting species. Collect samples, give each its Latin name; this my profession, and my discoveries show the biological richness of Nepal.’

  ‘In that process,’ I reply, ‘you will show the lowlands of Nepal and the lower Barun have more species than up high. Your recommendation would then say: focus on preserving the jungles, don’t loose those varied genetic resources. But there is a further dimension which is the hardiness of the alpine region where exist few species. Biodiversity and bioresilience, the strength of life itself is shown by both diversity of species and individual species strength. Two aspects of life, each complements the other.’

  ‘And complementarity may be important,’ Tirtha replies. ‘For with biodiversity a whole species can go extinct with a change in temperature—and we now enter a world of temperature change. Niches tropical species live in are usually delicate. When that delicate world experiences temperature change, gaps can open quickly in that diversity supposedly so robust.’

  ‘Precisely, having breadth in the system also brings less depth to each part. Shallow topsoil symbolizes this thin line of life. In tropical topsoil, which is actually very thin on the jungle floor, everything is alive, growing resplendently, but with that vibrancy is little dormant potential.’