Destination Truth: Memoirs of a Monster Hunter

by Josh Gates

  The hike starts off gentle but quickly turns steep, causing our group to schism into two packs. I struggle to stay in the lead group with Dawa, our main Sherpa. Our camera operator, Erica, who hails from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, flat-out runs up the hill. And surprisingly, our audio guy, Ponch, who isn’t exactly a picture of health, is in the lead as well. Brad, Casey, T-Bone, and Araceli filter toward the back, huffing in the thin air. At one point, during a break, Brad tries to stand up too quickly and nearly topples over.

  Suddenly, at the top of a high ridge, we all stop in our tracks. Everest. Its rocky peak sits heavy and silent, lording over an impossibly endless range of mountainous subjects. We stand around in reverent silence as though we’ve suddenly been granted an audience with Vito Corleone. Here, amidst such epic peaks and troughs, the yeti seems a plausible resident.

  By the time we reach the village of Namche, everyone is pretty well gassed. Brad, Araceli, and T-Bone look like they might actually drop. Despite our collective exhaustion, the beauty of Namche is hard to ignore. It’s a horseshoe-shaped trading post on an 11,000-foot hill surrounded by 20,000-foot peaks on either side. In the center of the enclave is a sprawling bazaar where Nepalese traders offer lovingly made crafts and clothes to anyone hearty enough to make the journey. Merchants from Tibet trek for over a week through treacherous passes to reach the market. It’s a serene melting pot of cultures, and we drift through the emporium like a breeze. We eventually land on the icy steps of our lodge, where thin-looking walls promise even colder accommodations than the night before—although I’m encouraged by the sight of some sort of water heater in my makeshift bathroom.

  After checking in, we interview locals who live on the outskirts of Namche, listening intently to their stories of the yeti while cozily sipping tea. The accounts vary only slightly, with most residents claiming to have seen the yeti’s handiwork (downed trees, mauled livestock) rather than the beast itself. Those who do claim to have spied the Snowman with their own eyes offer tantalizing descriptions of a massive bipedal primate that stands more than eight feet tall. The stories rouse my imagination, and on our way back to the lodge I find myself anxiously hurrying along the dark trail, glancing over my shoulder as I go.

  Morning again. It hits me like a brick to the face, and I’m shaking so badly from the cold that I can hardly see straight. I rush to the bathroom, where I crank the hot water on full blast in both the primitive shower and sink, causing clouds of steam to fill the entire room. Soon it’s misty and warm, and I can hardly see. I imagine that I’m in the Amazon, my fantasy broken only by the snow-covered vista outside my window. At breakfast I keep my head down and innocently sip my tea as the rest of the crew bitches about the lack of hot water in the complex. Whoops.

  We hike on for a few hours to the tidy village of Khumjung, tucked in a valley. The lack of wind here makes the temperature feel a bit warmer, and people mill about in the bright sunshine. As we stroll into town, children run past us and into the dusty field of the Khumjung School, founded by Sir Edmund Hillary.

  We approach the Khumjung monastery to view the rumored yeti remains. I’ve been assured by my contacts back in Kathmandu that I won’t have any problem filming here, which is why I’m more than a little surprised to see an elderly monk burst through the doors and hurl a rock at my face. So much for the virtues of peace. Luckily, Buddhist monks throw like little girls, and I’m able to dodge the projectile. The residents of the monastery are, in fact, quite sensitive to outsiders, and it takes an hour of discussion to reach détente and broker a friendly arrangement that allows us inside.

  Long after sunset, we’re welcomed in to examine the remains. The interior of the temple is dark and empty. The walls are painted with colorful but peeling pigments, and a central Buddha statue majestically overlooks the scene. We’re led to a rather unceremonious metal cabinet, which the monk unlocks and opens. Inside is a glass case containing a large brown scalp. Even though I’m skeptical about its authenticity, I have to admit, it looks really convincing. We want a sample—a single hair for DNA analysis. The monk is resolutely opposed. He explains that, years ago, the monks gave strands of the hair to curious trekkers who traveled to the monastery, and as a result, the scalp grew patchy, a baldness brought on by decades of follicular deforestation. Realizing that their generosity was destroying the precious artifact, they now seek to preserve the scalp for the next generation. The monk gives us an earnest look. “If we continue to give away hairs, soon there would be no hairs to give.” He’s like a cross between Yoda and a fortune cookie, and it’s tough to argue with him.

  Brad presses him for the sample, though, noting that if the hair fibers yield results, it would prove the scalp is real. “The scalp is real,” the monk counters. “We can see it. We can touch it. That is enough. We need no validation.” It’s a sobering point of view. Our Western propensity for cynicism and mistrust is of little interest here. At these heights, fact and belief are merged together, and truth is something to be attained, not challenged, the quest for empirical evidence supplanted by the quest for enlightenment.

  With the remains at Pangboche stolen and the scalp at Khumjung safely locked away, we’re going to have to find our own specimen. Having reached the altitude band where the creature would most likely live, we set out at dusk to cover as much ground as possible. Even though our array of night-vision equipment allows us to see across huge distances, the terrain here is challenging and slows us down considerably. We scour the forests, slipping down embankments and crossing icy streams before cautiously exploring a set of caves (yetis may or may not be real, but bears sure as shit are). Our efforts prove fruitless, and by dawn we’re exhausted and turning to Popsicles.

  After another day of hiking and searching, it’s beginning to feel like we’re looking for that proverbial needle. Since everyone is licked, we decide to let some of the team stay back and keep warm by a stove in the village. After shoveling down a few bowls of hot soup, a skeleton crew comprised of myself, Araceli, Erica, Ponch, and a few Sherpa escorts sets out for another night investigation. We happen upon a tributary of the large river that bisects this valley and dedicate the beginning of our search to the forested side of the stream. Other than hearing a few twigs snap in the darkness, we don’t come up with much. We cross the water to the rockier side of the bank. I peer through the darkness but don’t see anything of interest. Hell, I can barely see the members of my own team. As I shine my flashlight under a few huge boulders, I hear one of our Sherpas excitedly call out, “Josh, Josh!”

  I spin around, my eyes focusing on his headlamp a few hundred feet behind me. By the time I get to him, he’s crouching down, shining his light on the ground. I’m speechless. More specifically, I’m in shock.

  I radio to Brad, Casey, and the rest of the team back at the village, my voice shaking as I yell out instructions. “Grab the casting powder! We found a giant footprint!”

  The print is about seventeen inches long, with five digits and a generally anthropomorphic shape. Also, there’s a partial second footprint in front of the first, which is intersected by a rock, preserving only the back half of the foot. In addition, a poorly preserved print sits behind both of these, in the softer sand. My mind is racing, trying to explain away these gigantic impressions.

  The rest of the team arrives and races down the embankment to our position. I direct their eyes along the ground with my flashlight beam, shining it onto the prints. Everyone is agape. “Are you kidding me?!” Brad exclaims.

  We’re now at a fever pitch of excitement. Our Sherpa is beside himself, and the team immediately erupts in discussion over the print. The investigation turns into an excavation; we spread out case after case of gear on the nearby rocks and erect light panels around the site.

  The process of casting and extracting both the full and partial prints takes some time but goes smoothly. My discovery in Malaysia has provided me with some experience in this arena, after all. While the plaster is hardening, the team scours the res
t of the ridge for additional prints, hair samples, feces, or material remains, but we find nothing. Carefully, we deliver the castings to our camp where we get warm and get fed.

  In the morning, we determine that hiking the prints back down to Lukla is too risky. After all, this is what we came for, and one fall could shatter our evidence into a million pieces. We fire up the satellite phone and call in a chopper to shuttle us down to the airstrip. The helicopter arrives, and we wave the pilot onto the ridge. With no helipad here, he simply sets down in a cabbage patch, allowing us to pile in. As we lift off, the pilot dons an oxygen mask and takes us up to over 17,000 feet. My head spins in the thin air, and we bank down along the river toward lower altitudes.

  We have to wait until morning for the next flight out of Lukla, so we do the only sensible thing and celebrate in a village bar. Countless bottles of Everest brand beer are cracked open, and we shoot dice on a tattered pool table and drunkenly sing along to Dire Straits and CCR, which blasts through an old stereo. In the corner, a crudely wrapped package conceals a set of yeti footprints. It’s a hell of a party that goes until the wee hours of the night. Finally, the crew begins to peel off, weaving through the cobblestone streets to a nearby lodge. Following behind, Brad and I stagger into the now opaque evening, wisely entrusting the prints to a sober Sherpa just before the two of us fall into a gutter.

  At first light, we all trudge over to the airstrip and sit on the tarmac, waiting for the plane’s arrival. We’re all brutally hungover; Erica gets up at one point and literally barfs on the runway, which is sort of impressive. We meet the plane and wait to board while about ten cases of Everest beer are offloaded, pleased with ourselves at the inventory that needs to be replenished. As we climb up the aircraft’s stairs, the Yeti Air footprint logo on the tail of our plane catches my eye; a fat grin erupts on my face.

  The plane lands, and a car brings us to the Hotel Yak & Yeti, where journalists have gathered. It seems the news of our discovery has traveled on the coconut wire down to the capital. Cameras snap furiously as we’re ushered into a conference room for an impromptu press conference. I even notice reporters from Al Jazeera and Reuters. We answer questions, produce the prints, and spend the afternoon conducting interviews for international media outlets. It’s surreal.

  By the next morning we’re on the cover of every paper in Nepal, and CBS and CNN have both run stories on us in the States. I’m woefully misquoted in a local newspaper as saying, “The Snowman is no longer legend for us,” a statement that makes me sound like a total nut job. I celebrate my newfound celebrity status by treating myself to a cheap haircut at the hands of an old Indian barber who also trims my eyebrows and throws in a neck massage. Not bad for three bucks.

  In the evening we proceed to the famous Rum Doodle restaurant, an obligatory stop for those climbing Everest. A long-standing tradition here demands that teams sign their names on paper cutouts shaped like yeti prints, which are then pinned to the walls. Every square inch of the restaurant is covered in footprints, memorializing thousands of climbers, including the members of the famed Krakauer expedition chronicled in Into Thin Air. We’re quickly recognized from all the press coverage and are invited to add our names to the venerated walls. If any of you are in Kathmandu, you can find our signatures fastened to the ceiling above the bar.

  Back in the States, the castings are subject to a battery of analysis. We take them to Dr. Jeffrey Meldrum of Idaho State University, a respected professor of anatomy and anthropology. He’s also a renowned footprint specialist and manages a collection of more than two hundred mystery primate impressions. Meldrum digitizes our evidence using a three-dimensional laser scanner. The results are intriguing. Based on the size and contour of the two prints, the computer confirms a match. In other words, they are anatomically consistent and, considering the depth of the impression, suggest a 300- to 400-pound culprit.

  I’ve been asked a lot whether I think the footprints could have been manufactured. The short answer is: yes. Anything is possible. Having said that, I think it’s very unlikely. After all, we were hiking through extreme and remote wilderness on an improvised route known to no one, not even ourselves. We were wandering. Also, the prints are matching, which means that someone would have had to be carrying two detailed molds or models, possess intimate knowledge of primate anatomy, and accurately calculate stride and weight. So. Pretty doubtful. At no point during my trip did someone say, “Oh, have you met Dawa? He’s a Sherpa now, but he was a special-effects artist on Planet of the Apes. He lives right over there by that river.”

  However, I can’t say to a surety that a yeti is responsible for the prints, either. To me, they look a bit, well . . . goofy. The bulbous, splayed toes and immense size make me want to smile more than recoil in terror.

  Though the analysis of the find is extremely compelling, it’s also finite. There’s only so much information that can be gleaned from a footprint, and once the data has been collected, we’re left to figure out what to do with our plaster souvenir. The print makes its way back to our production office, where it sits patiently on a desk between Brad and me. “What are we going to do with this thing, Gates?” Brad asks. The answer presents itself six months later in Orlando.

  To my parents’ dismay, I was born a Disney enthusiast. When I was a kid, we would go to Florida annually, at my insistence. Every February or April vacation, my poor mother and father would be reluctantly pulled through the turnstiles of Walt Disney World, suffer the indignity of endless cycles on It’s a Small World, and endure a few hundred voyages with the Pirates of the Caribbean. When I turned sixteen, my mother finally snapped. Mentally strained from years of helplessly looking on as animatronic buccaneers raped and pillaged that poor Caribbean town, she’d finally had enough. “No more!” she defiantly announced in her proper British accent. “I can’t take those bloody pirates anymore.” Before I could protest, she leveled a finger at me and decreed, “We’re not going back there until you give me a grandchild.” Well played, Mom. Well played.

  My parents now spend four months of the year in Florida (in Sarasota, at a generous distance from Disney World). In the span of two years they’ve gone from hearty New Englanders to self-described “snowbirds.” Suddenly they eat dinner at 4:45 in the afternoon, play bocce, and drink Moxie soda.

  My girlfriend and I have flown down to visit them. At six thirty one evening, we’re already back at their condo after dinner at the Outback Steakhouse, a restaurant that my mother is now referring to as “incredible.” Their nightly après-meal ritual involves my father watching television and yelling at Alex Trebek while my mother clips coupons for Subway sandwiches out of the Pelican Press. I remind her that the foot-long subs are literally five dollars to begin with. She just shakes her head and keeps on clipping. On the TV, Alex is squinting at the Double Jeopardy board, which sends my father round the bend. “Jesus. Put your glasses on, Trebek!” my father blurts out.

  The next morning my girlfriend and I excuse ourselves from the breakneck pace of life in Sarasota and drive up to Orlando to visit Disney’s Animal Kingdom. I had originally intended to visit the park in 1999 during my senior spring break in college, but my vacation was derailed by a Big Mac extra-value meal at a Florida McDonald’s that caused my gallbladder to explode. True story.

  Animal Kingdom is the largest Disney theme park in the world, sprawling over more than five hundred acres of lushly manicured grounds. One of the big draws is a roller coaster called Expedition Everest where riders evade the yeti on a high-speed runaway train. As we stroll into the Asia-themed section of the park, I’m blown away by how enormous and detailed the attraction is. I’m suddenly transported to the streets of Kathmandu, marveling at the backpacks and climbing gear hanging from the beautifully faked storefronts.

  Like all popular Disney rides, the line is an attraction in its own right. Guests are gently corralled and then led on a labyrinthine journey with enough twists and turns that they never realize how long the queue is and co
nsequently don’t go completely insane. We snake through the purposely disheveled booking office and then out past an ornately detailed wooden temple. Finally, we wind into a building with an overhanging sign that reads “Yeti Museum.” Inside, guests pass display cases containing news articles and relics from expeditions that have gone in search of the yeti. I call Brad on my cell phone. “Dude. I know where the yeti print belongs.”

  The process of actually getting the appropriate rep from Disney on the phone is harder than expected. No matter who I call or how I phrase my pitch, I sound like a crazy person. “Hi. So. I’m a professional monster hunter who found a footprint in the Himalayas that might be from a yeti. I was wond—Hello? Hello?”

  I’m bounced from Burbank to Hong Kong, Orlando to Paris. Everyone hands me off to another department. Finally, on a last-ditch call to a publicist in Tokyo, I’m told, “You need to talk to Joe Rohde.”

  “Who’s Joe Rohde?” I ask.

  The silence on the other end of the line is deafening.

  “Joe Rohde is the guy you need to talk to,” the voice finally says matter-of-factly.

  “Okay. Joe Rohde. Got it. Do you have a num—Hello? Hello?”

  It doesn’t take much digging to realize that yes, Joe Rohde is in fact, the guy. He is a senior vice president and an executive designer for Walt Disney Imagineering. As a first impression, know this: more than twenty years ago, when he and his small team were trying to sell Disney executives on the idea of an environmentally focused theme park (long before going green was chic), the question was raised as to whether live animals would be exciting enough for Disney’s over-stimulated guests. To rebuff his doubters, Rohde paraded a 400-pound Bengal tiger into a board meeting. Needless to say, the terrified executives scrambled into a corner, and the question was dropped. He continued as the lead designer and developer for Animal Kingdom and was the driving creative force behind the Expedition Everest attraction.