AN EXPLORER from Wotton-under-Edge believes he uncovered the tracks of a yeti while hiking in the Himalaya Range.

Steve Berry, managing director of Mountain Kingdoms Ltd in Wotton, was trekking in the Kingdom of Bhutan when he came across the mysterious footprints.

Returning a year later, the 66-year-old father of two found yet another set of tracks and is now convinced he came close to the creature Bhutanese folklore calls the Migoi.

In October 2014 Steve was part of a group trekking the mountains in Bhutan close to the Tibetan border.

They were working their way towards the highest unclimbed mountain in the world, Gangkar Punsum, when Steve led them into mostly-unchartered territory through valleys tucked away between unnamed mountains.

It where there that his guide Karma Tenzing made a startling discovery and instantly pointed it out to Steve.

“The guide was as shocked and amazed as we were,” he said.

“The tracks were on a patch of snow cut off by cliffs. They were large tracks and I knew they must have come from a big animal.”

However, Steve, holding a substantial knowledge of the wildlife in that area – snow leopards, bears, and blue sheep – couldn’t see how any of the animals he was aware of could have left such tracks.

Almost human-like, the tracks comprised one print directly in front of the other. There were around two dozen clear prints before they began to fade.

He said: “My theory is that it’s some kind of large ape that lives at the end of the treeline and goes up to the mountains searching for animals to hunt, or to cross from one valley to another.

“There are lots of stories about different sets of tracks people have found. I always thought there must be something up there.”

After seeing the tracks they headed back down the way they had come, stopping to speak to a couple who lived in a home near the mountains.

Steve, through his guide Karma, asked the husband about wildlife in the area, then asked if he had ever seen the Migoi.

Migoi is Tibetan for ‘wild man’ and is the equivalent of the western terms yeti and abominable snowman.

“He said he had lived in the area his whole life and had often seen the tracks of the Migoi,” said Steve. “He said you could always tell Migoi tracks from those of other animals as one print was always directly in front of the other.

“I nearly fell over when he said that – it was fantastic.”

The man went on to tell Steve how, on one occasion, he had had a face to face encounter with the Migoi.

“He said it was standing upright and facing him with its arms by its side and that it was covered in hair, including on its face, like a cat or dog. “He said it was about the size of a man, and it stood and stared at him for several minutes before slowly walking off.”

A meeting with the Migoi, in Bhutanese culture, is considered an omen of death. The man said that fortunately, as his encounter had taken place more than a decade before, he seemed to have avoided misfortune.

A year later, Steve returned to the same area of Bhutan with another group of trekkers and saw yet another set of tracks, cementing his firm belief that the Migoi exists and is a large ape of some description.

Steve told the Gazette that people back home tend to be more sceptical than himself.

“The problem is we’ve build up the idea of this huge thing and made it out to be a human-like wild man and it’s not,” he said.

“It’s just another animal not recorded by science.”

Steve intends to return to Bhutan this October to search for the Migoi.

His discovery has been covered by various national media outlets and will appear in a programme on Channel 4 in the summer.

Mountain Kingdoms is a walking and trekking holiday specialist that organises group trips to a range of Eastern and worldwide locations.