Dark Histories

High up in the peaks of the Himalayas, a footprint in the snow baffles a mountaineer as he attempts to climb Everest for the first time. Pulling out his camera, he prepares to snap a shot, eyeing the horizon nervously before placing his icepick down alongside the print for scale and bringing the viewfinder up to his eye. In India, a tea planter reads about the photograph in a local newspaper and turns over the idea of going to hunt the creature that made the tracks, completely unaware that he was about to start what would eventually become a lifelong mission. On the other side of the world, a Texas oil baron reads about tales of adventure high up in the mountains of Nepal, a mystical land of incense and meditation, and dreams of uncovering the mysteries of the wilds. The trio was, it's safe to say, a fairly unlikely crew, but their fates would become intimately linked by a search that would carry them halfway around the world, hole up in damp caves for days on end and pull off one of the most unusual heists i