A 60-year-old Japanese mountaineer is undertaking a six-week expedition to prove the existence of the Yeti on the slopes of Dhaulagiri. Many people say the yeti is only a legend while some people believe in its existence but nobody has been able to prove it, Yoshiteru Takahashi said in Kathmandu. I have been fascinated by this creature and came here in 1994 searching for evidence of its existence in Dhaulagiri but failed to capture it on film as I had hoped.

Takahashi claims to have seen yeti footprints in the snow in 1994 which convinced him of the existence of the abominable snowman. Takahashi is armed with six infra-red cameras which will operate around the clock in the area where he believes the creature lives. Most earlier explorers have given up looking for the yeti, and think it is actually a Himalayan bear that strays into the snows leaving ape-like footprints. A scalp that Sherpas thought belonged to the yeti was also proven to belong to a Himalayan blue sheep.