Everest avalanche and the Sherpa belief in Yeti-like Lepchas

Mount Everest has expressed its deadly wrath once again, with an avalanche striking an advance party of Sherpas heading up past the Khumbu Icefall under the hanging glaciers of the West Shoulder (this is the standard approach to the South Col route taken by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay and the majority of present-day expeditions). Thirteen bodies have been pulled from the snow, while the search has been abandoned for a further three. Numerous Sherpas were injured. Helicopters were used for evacuation, and ironically discussed as an alternative to climbing this treacherous stretch in the future. The only surprise was that this was the biggest loss of life in one accident, in a place where, even with the advent of big business and new technology, death is a regular occurrence, especially among the Sherpas.

Believers of one of the oldest and most mystical forms of Tibetan Buddhism, the Nyingma school, Sherpas have deep reverence for the power of natural forces, which they feel can be also incarnated as gods and animals. This is a carryover from the pre-Buddhist beliefs of many Himalayan cultures. One of these, the Lepcha, worshipped a “Glacier Being” hunting god, quite possibly the pre-cursor to the ‘Yeti,’ one of the most famous creatures of cryptozoology over the two most recent centuries.READ MORE