“Perhaps the best way to find Bigfoot is to set up camp in a likely region and live there quietly until this creature, in its primate curiosity, makes a few investigations of its own.”

Bingo. TBRC researchers can attest to this, as can the members of at least one yeti expedtion. The key is to fund them so that they can stay on site for the critter’s followup visits.

I think I’m coming this year. To the conference, I mean. Unless someone wants to fund me for that lengthy backcountry stay.

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But as with the sasquatch of the vast rain forests of the Pacific Northwest, the case against the existence of the yeti - entirely speculative, and necessarily based on assumptions of foolishness or mendacity in many observers of good reputation - is even less “scientific” than the evidence that it exists. Photographs and casts of the yeti footprint are consistent - a very odd, broad primate foot - and so are the sight records, most of which come from the populous Sherpa country of eastern Nepal.

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Again, he’s a bit more skeptical about the sasquatch. As of the time of this book, that is.

But from what I’ve read of Matthiessen, he’d be the last person to support primate-chasing in Texas if he didn’t think it was worthwhile to do. Mystical as some of his pursuits may be, he’s proof that that says nothing about one’s orientation toward science and interpretation of evidence.

The TBRC conference is worth the trip and expense. I strongly encourage folks to attend, meet and greet…a great opportunity to network with southern sasquatchery.

The Tex Mex and a few dos equis at Posadas is well worth the trip…muy bien I will try my damndest to be there this year, sorry about missing last year, especially when Alton was buying.

live and let live…

ole bub and the dawgs

“Matthiessen not only was in the Himalayas and heard about the Yeti presumably, …”

Oh, a little better than that. He thinks he may have seen one.

Read “The Snow Leopard,” his 1979 magnum opus, in which there is much very open-minded discussion of the yeti. His companion on that trip, the eminent zoologist George Schaller, announces in the book his conviction that a species unknown to science made the famous “Shipton track,” which remains the single most prominent known piece of yeti evidence.

In “The Snow Leopard,” Matthiessen seems more skeptical about the sasquatch. But his background both as a naturalist and as a practitioner of Eastern religions and an acquaintance with their associated mystical experiences makes him a remarkable blend of hard-nosed and open-minded. I would expect him to have gotten up to speed on the sasquatch since, and to have altered his stance. Based, of course, on evidence, as are his thoughts about the yeti.

Matthiessen not only was in the Himalayas and heard about the Yeti presumably, he is on record talking about the place of Bigfoot in Indian Country, among contemporary Native Americans.