The male is around 7 feet tall and the female, around 6 feet. The male's weight is between 300 and 350 pounds and the female is around 200 and 250 pounds. They forage for food during the daylight hours. Stories of the Yeti vary in detail but many of them suggest a creature with an apelike body and a human-like face. Nepalese Sherpas have described the Yeti as having long, reddish-brown hair all over its body.
Superstitions say that sighting the creature can bring ill fortune, illness, or death.
That alluring name has stuck. The Yeti, which is supposed to live high in the Himalaya but has also been reported as far away as the European Alps, is said to prowl by night leaving huge footprints in the snow. Many expeditions have attempted to prove the Yeti's existence, but no scientific evidence has definitively confirmed it. In shaded snow Hillary's team found impressions resembling fox tracks. The tracks led to a sunny area where melting had elongated the tracks into large human-like footprints.