Khumjung, Tibet

Marc E. Miller and William Caccioli, of the New World Explorers Society, retraced the route of Hillary's 1960 Yeti expedition, visiting the Buddhist monasteries at Khumjung, Thyangboche, and Pangboche. At Khumjung, Miller and Caccioli interviewed Khonjo Khumbi, the village elder who accompanied Hillary to the United States with the famous Yeti scalp.

Khonjo told Miller and Caccioli that in the course of his travels through Tibet [not Nepal] he had seen whole Yeti furs. The High Lama of the Thyangboche monastery also said he had seen such furs in the homes of great hunters.

Miller and Caccioli reported that they received possible Yeti chest hairs from an elderly woman of Khumjung village in Tibet: "We were told that her son was carrying potatoes along a trail in 1978, and was allegedly attacked by a Yeti. The Yeti was described as a large male, nearly 7 feet tall, and covered with dark and reddish hair. During the course of the attack, the young man took his potato hoe and struck the Yeti across the chest. The Yeti fled into the higher mountain region. The young man struggled back to Khumjung village to his mother, and described his encounter with the Yeti. His wounds were serious, and he later died."

Source: Myra Shackley, 1986, Still Living: Yeti, Sasquatch and the Neanderthal Enigma, p.82