Once upon a time, a small village in the mountains of the Himalayas received a particularly heavy fall of snow.  The residents woke up to see their entire town completely covered.  Families cuddled inside by the fire and spent the day playing games and eating, rather than venturing out into the bitter cold.  One particularly pious monk, however, left his meager dwelling to stroll through town, meditating on the beauty of the world and praying for the prosperity of the village.

As he trudged through the snow, he looked up and suddenly saw in the distance a very, naked man, covered from head to tow in a rich, long, white fur.  Naturally a curious fellow, the monk headed over to the next hillock to investigate.  Standing at opposite sides of the hill, the monk and the creature stared at each other inquisitively.  The creature suddenly broke into a smile, and with a playful twinkle in his eye, bent down to form a snowball.  He tossed the snowball at the monk and stood with his arms open, waiting for the monk to participate in the game.  Unfortunately, as yeti smiles and yeti grimaces look rather similar, the monk was terrified and ran back to the village. With a loud cry he sounded the gong, and the other monks rushed from their warm homes to see what was the matter.  With a cry, the pious monk spoke of terrors in the hills, monsters who attack from the very snow.  The monks were scared and sounded trumpets and horns and ran to their stations to defend their quiet town.  As the sound echoed through the mountains the snow man was frightened and pushed deeper into the Himalayas where he felt safe.  Since then the yeti has been elusive and scared of the generally peaceful, friendly people of Nepal.

Legends speak of the yeti throughout the Himalayan region.  From Tibet to Mongolia, climbers still record seeing traces of these supposedly magnificent creatures.  They are always described as somewhere between ape and human, walking upright, and covered with a long, fine fur, varying in color from a deep black to a very light blond.  There are certainly not many areas less hospitable to human exploration than the deep caves and peaks of the Himalayan range.  It would be arrogant to think there wasn't anything deep in the mountains worth discovering.  The yeti very well could exist; a well adapted, private, creature keeping to itself high in the snowy slopes.