That time Air New Zealand went yeti hunting in Nepal, podcast goes on the trail

Air New Zealand's 2011 expedition to Everest Base Camp, attended by then airline CEO Rob Fyfe and mountaineer Mike Allsop. Photo / Concrete for Pangboche

In April 2011 a group of New Zealanders arrived in Nepal with a special delivery from Wētā Workshop: a yeti’s paw. A new podcast explores this bizarre mission to the Himalayas and other abominable snowman tales.

As they unfurled the familiar Koru flag at Everest Base Camp, you might have thought the 15 airline workers were lost.

At an altitude of 5364m - roughly half the cruising altitude of a Boeing 777- and a good 3000km away from the closest part of the airline’s network, the collection of Air New Zealand pilots, cabin crew and airline executives still saw it as an achievement to celebrate.

The expedition was led by the then airline CEO Rob Fyfe and pilot-turned-mountaineer Mike Allsop.

It might be the most unlikely New Zealand-Nepalese crossover since the 1953 Hillary-Tenzing expedition.

Wearing Koru flight caps, flags and even a T-shirt from the “Fit to Fly” Richard Simmons safety video, they carried an eclectic array of items from Aotearoa.

Although none were as odd as the objects given to them by Richard Taylor, the Wellington prop maker behind the Lord of The Rings films.

They had been given the “hand” of a yeti - the mythical monster supposed to live in the Himalayas - also a “scalp”.

These strange quest items were not destined for a cinema blockbuster but a monastery in Nepal on the way to Mt Everest. They were replicas of the relics that had gone missing in the 1990s.

The originals were claimed to have come from yeti, whose hand had been mummified by the Pangboche monastery. In an area where the economy relies heavily on tourism from mountaineers, having parts of a mythical creature was a boon. They were a draw for curious international visitors and a source of income for the village. That was, until they were stolen.

Two decades later, the unlikely team of Kiwi aircrew were visiting to replace the missing yeti relics - albeit with movie props - and restore Pangboche’s tourism draw. It was a mission that, until recently, flew below the radar.

Air New Zealand pilot, Mike Allsop presents the Pangboche Monastery with the Wellington-made yeti hand replica. Photo / Concrete for Pangboche

The great yeti obsession

The Air New Zealand trip to Nepal is one of many oddities touched on briefly in a new podcast by author and adventurer Andrew Benfield.

He has given lectures on the abominable snowman at the Royal Geographic Society and recently made a 10-part podcast on the subject for the BBC.

Nepal and the surrounding Himalayan countries are full of stories and artefacts claiming to be from the mythical animal, says the podcaster.

The 2011 expedition belongs to a long tradition of “yeti hunting” trips, dating back to Sir Edmund Hillary’s 1960s trip to look for the abominable snowman. However, the intentions of these trips are hard to judge. According to Benfield, the yeti has been used to raise publicity, funding and even cover for espionage during trips to the region.

“It is a highly sensitive region up there, so saying that you’re ‘looking for the yeti’ is a good cover,” he says. There are many reasons to be sceptical of peoples’ intentions when they tell you they’re hunting for mythical creatures.

But, what might be easy to dismiss as shaggy-dog story looks a lot more convincing in foothills of Everest.

After a petition by New Zealand mountaineers failed to locate the stolen objects, the airline’s CEO and Wētā got involved to provide replacements.

Fyfe wrote on the Air New Zealand blog on May 6, 2011, of the experience of donating the replicas as a “gift to the Pangboche monastery in the hope we could assist them to recreate this much-needed revenue stream”.

He said that the donation was intended as an “enduring and positive contribution” for the community.

The ex-airline boss told the Herald this week that the journey was arranged as a private trip to Nepal, “albeit the members of the group were all Air NZ staff”.

“The idea of donating the replica yeti hand and head (created by Wētā Workshops) was the idea of our expedition leader Mike Allsop - and the ceremony at which we handed it over was a very moving moment for the villagers and the members of our party.”

Former Air New Zealand CEO Rob Fyfe and pilot, Mike Allsop in the Everest Valley 2011. Photo / Concrete for Pangboche

The yeti replicas were every bit as fantastic as the objects the movie studios had been making for The Hobbit, Peter Jackson’s fantasy film, which had just come out in cinemas and for which the airline was in a marketing partnership. Although the national carrier was not prepared to paint their picture on the side of a B777-300, as they had done for the Tolkien monsters.

A spokesperson for the airline could not say whether any part of the trip had been paid for by the company - “given how long ago this was”.

Unlike hobbits, dragons or the Loch Ness monster - there’s still a fair bit of mystery and superstition around the Himalayas’ abominable snowman.

Despite a number of senior aircrew attending the trip to Nepal, it remained a relatively low-profile mission.

Allsop told the Herald earlier this year it was about doing a good turn for a friend, Lama Geshe at the monastery. He wrote of his trips to Pangboche in his 2013 book, High Altitude.

In an open letter on his website from 2010, Alsop said he wanted to return the hand because “good things happen to good people”.

The abominable snowman: Challenging the yeti’s bad rap

One person who is not afraid to talk about the Himalayan myth is Benfield. Having recently made a documentary on the yeti, it’s clear that’s not always the case.

“We’ve had people refuse to go on tape because they were worried about the damage it would do to them if they said they believed in the yeti.”

It’s a question he asked himself, if he wanted the reputation of the “yeti man”.

Benfield has travelled extensively over the past three years to India, Burma, Bhutan and Nepal, to try to find conclusive proof that the yeti does - or does not - exist.

Pangboche and the New Zealand yeti hand was one of the many places his trip has taken him to. In the Solukhumbu, a region on the way to Everest, tourism and mountain guiding is one of the few earners for the local economy. Having the relic returned was a huge relief.

“The monastery is happy to have the hand and [I’m] sure it may well get some tourists to visit it who wouldn’t otherwise go,” he says. “Although, they don’t advertise that it’s actually a replica.”

Sir Edmund Hillary, in a publicity photo for his 1960 'Abominable Snowman Hunt' as part of the Silver Hut expedition. Photo / Getty Images

Still the yeti is something that resists commercial tourism. In 2020 a Nepal tourism campaign caused outrage after erecting 108 yeti statues around Kathmandu. Many were defaced, and the Nepali Times quoted locals who wanted “insensitive” statues painted over.

“Nepal has tried to monetise the yeti, featuring it in tourism campaigns and the private sector is all over it,” says Benfield. “As you can see walking round Kathmandu with all the yeti-branded businesses, Yeti Airlines, the Yak and Yeti hotel etc.” Still the higher you go in the mountains, the more remote, the more reverence the yeti attracts.

In neighbouring Bhutan, some people will talk of the “Migoi” - a yeti creature - as a matter of fact.

The country is unique in having created the 745sq km Sakteng Wildlife Sanctuary for the creature, which may or may not exist. Along with friend and podcaster Richard Horsey, Benfield set out to visit the park last year for the podcast.

So has Benfield found the mythical animal or at least evidence of its absence?

Not quite yeti.

Having made the perilous three-day journey to Sakteng, they were disappointed to learn that the lead ranger in the world’s only “Yeti Sanctuary” was a sceptic.

As two middle-aged, white men come looking for “proof”, Benfield is aware his expedition is a cliche.

One wonders if something can only be considered to exist if it has been spotted by a man in a parka from Oxford, or if his expedition would have the same reception quizzing New Yorkers of their experiences with Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy. He might not have been humoured for quite so long.

But he is part of a long tradition.

Sir David Attenborough has been on record about being open to the possibility of the Himalayan yeti.

In 1960, as part of the Silver Hut expedition, Edmund Hillary returned to Nepal armed with a Southland deer Cap-Chur gun. The trip was largely publicised as a “yeti hunt”, bringing the famous mountaineer along for extra PR.

In ITN newsreel footage from the time, the Kiwi explorer can still be seen with a knowing grin saying, if they did find a yeti, he would “let it go back to its natural habitat”.

Benfield says that, whether yetis exist or not, they have the power to grab attention like no other animal.

“In the 50s and 60s, saying you did believe in the yeti and were out looking for it was a great way to get funding for your mountaineering or scientific expedition,” he says.

“The west basically made it a toxic brand after it fetishised it and exaggerated it into a fantasy monster.”

Another trope of the abominable snowman hunt that Benfield is keen to avoid is the “inconclusive” evidence.

After their international yeti escapade, Benfield and Horsley have returned with trinkets and hair bracelets pertaining to be from the creature.

Waiting on DNA results from the University of Buffalo on the origin of these mystery objects, the final part of the podcast series is due to air next month.

One thing is for certain. It didn’t come from Wētā Workshop.

Yeti can be heard on iHeart or wherever you get your podcasts