People, Sep. 12, 1960

Departing Sydney for Calcutta, Sir Edmund Hillary, New Zealand's cliff-hanger extraordinary, labeled his upcoming nine-month expedition "the most important of its kind ever to go to the Himalayas." Its prime purpose: to conduct physiological tests atop the world's fifth-highest peak, Mount Makalu, which the party of 18 hopes to mount without oxygen tanks. But getting most of the headlines so far was an expedition sideline: Hillary's quest for the Abominable Snowman. Although he suspects that the abomination is just a snow job, Hillary is toting a special, hypodermic-firing blunderbuss with a so-yd. kayo...

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