NONFICTION - April 23, 1995

SOMETHING HIDDEN BEHIND THE RANGES: A Himalayan Quest by Daniel Taylor-Ide (Mercury House: $14.95 paper; 299 pp.). Daniel Taylor-Ide spent many summers in his family’s bungalow in the lower Himalayas, so he comes by his interest in the Abominable Snowman quite naturally. The adjective abominable is a misnomer, but that only heightens the mystery surrounding this creature better referred as the Yeti, this “something hidden” for which Kipling (as quoted in the book’s epigraph, but without the Yeti in mind) bid readers search. Taylor-Ide--by trade a public health educator and administrator, now based in West Virginia--has been on the Yeti’s trail for 30-odd years, and “Something Hidden Behind the Ranges” is an appealing account of his eccentric lifelong quest. It is an adventure story, to be sure, but also an appreciation of Himalayan culture, a meditation on man’s role in the earthly scheme, and a tale of the clashing perspectives of amateurs and professionals, natives and visitors, well-traveled researchers and well-read scholars. The arc of the book is summed up nicely by Taylor (Ide’s wife), Jennifer--herself an old Himalaya hand who accompanied the author (along with their toddler) on at least one expedition--when she points out that Taylor-Ide began with a Yeti obsession, moved on to tree bears when they appeared to match most Yeti descriptions and finally became devoted to the creation of Nepali and Tibetan preserves to protect the bears. “Something Hidden” is usually interesting, and Taylor-Ide’s expeditions into Nepal’s virtually unchartered Barun Valley--its biological zones range from the tropical to the arctic-like--are exhilarating. Does Taylor-Ide finally believe that Yeti do not exist, that the only man-like beast the mountains contain are agile, deceptive tree bears? Yes . . . and no, for he came to learn that while Yeti may not breathe in the physical sense, they live on in Himalayan culture nonetheless, as symbol, relic, justification, mystery.