Aloha, from the Himalayas! The Search for the Abominable Snowman Golden Fleece Productions is now offering for a limited time this limited edition expedition photo from the soon to be released documentary film by Kai Roath.  Each expedition photo is personally autographed by Chris Pontius (shown at the far left, Mr Pontius is known from MTV's "jackass" as Bunny The Lifeguard and Party Boy).  Limited to 60 prints, each collector's print measures 5" x 7"  Expected release date for the film will be Summer 2004. Check back here for further details on how to purchase the video. Photo by Garth Beidenger copyright 2001   Autograph by Chris Pontius, limited and numbered to 60 prints, while supplies last. Sorry, SOLD OUT!

from the New Times, October 26, 2000

abridged version

EXPLORATION story and photo by Glen Starkey

from left to right, Garth and Kai

"Search for the Abominable Snowman!: A Local Team Of Explorers Plan To Make A Documentary Of Their Search"

   Alarge map of Nepal covers one wall of filmmaker Kai Roath's Kitchen. Yellow highlighter marks area he believes are most promising for sighting one of the world's great mysteries, the abominable snowman, or yeti. The creature has sparked the Western imagination since it was first described to a European mercinary in Mongolia in the early 15th century.
    "No tourists go to this side of Nepal," said Roath, pointing to the map. Next month he and his team will look for the yeti in a desolate, high-altitude wasteland in the far  east of this tiny mountainous nation. "That's where they've found footprints in the past. If we get there and hear how somebody's uncle saw one six months ago or someone's sister heard one scream last night, we'll book it over to that area."
    The yeti legend was given credence in 1951 when, on his fifth trip to Mount Everest, at an altitude of about 19,000 feet, climber Eric Shipton found a clear trail of huge, naked footprints in the snow of Menlung Glacier in the Guari Sankar range of mountains southwest of Mount Everest. Along with his Sherpa companion, Sen Tensing, and others, Shipton followed the trail for about a mile. He returned with amazing photographs of prints that were 13 inches long and 8 inches wide. Shipton said that the prints were too large to be a bear's and too fresh to have been enlarged or distorted by melting.
    Shipton was quoted in the book "Strange Stories, Amazing Facts" as saying, "What really made my flesh creep...was where we had to jump crevasses you could see clearly where the creature had dug his toes in."
    Roath hopes he, too, will capture evidence of this mysterious creature on film. His team includes Garth Biedenger and Chris Pontius (the latter best known as one of the stars of "Jackass," the MTV shock show; in one episode Pontius was filmed rollerblading in Venice Beach wearing nothing but a jockstrap).  Bikini model Becky Bell, is coming along as "yeti bait."
    Roath has spent the past year researching the subject in depth. He explained, for instance, some yeti artifacts are kept in Buddhist monasteries.
    "Every one of these monasteries has a room dedicated to the animals of Nepal," said Roath, "Some of the artifacts are admitted fakes, but there's supposed to be a real yeti scalp in one monastery and a skeletal hand in another. There's one story about [actor] Jimmy Stewart smuggling out a yeti finger in his wife's lingerie in the 1950s. It was supposedly tested, but the tests were inconclusive. Maybe with the advances in science it would turn out differently today."
    Roath isn't the first Westerner to venture into Nepal in search of this legendary creature. The first serious expedition, which was mounted by London's Daily Mail in 1954, featured an impressive team of experts. Then, in 1960, Edmund Hillary, the famous Everest climber, mounted an expedition sanctioned by the Nepalese government, which ordered that, if found, the yeti was not to be harmed, killed, or captured.
    The most famous expedition, however, was the 1958 Slick-Johnson Snowman Search, lead by Peter Byrne, author of "Search for Big Foot: Monster, Myth or Man?" When Roath's team arrives in Katmandu, they'll visit Byrne before departing for Arun Valley.
    Despite a want of any real evidence, Roath is convinced there is something is out there.
    "The people of he Himalayas have more than 20 names for the abominable snowman," said Roath, "Why would they have so many different names for something that doesn't exist? Most of these people who have sighted the yeti come from little villages, and they'll probably never travel more than 50 miles in their lifetimes. I just want to see what it is."
    Roath will be hiring a translator and a team of Sherpas to help carry equiptment, including the solar panels that will power the crew's digital and video cameras. All of this is costing alot of money, so Roath has been securing corporate sponsorships. Lucky Lager has donated beer and t-shirts, Coleman has provided  camping supplies. But the expedition's major sponsor is the San Luis Obispo Foster's Old Fashioned Freeze restaraunt. Expedition t-shirts will be available this week.
    Whether he finds the yeti or not, Roath will make a documentary of his expedition called, "Aloha from the Himalayas." it's to be the second in his series about oddities. He is currently working on the final edit of "Roadside Attractions of the West Coast," which chronicles such places as the Santa Cruz Mystery Spot and Big Foot country in Humbolt County.