Ladakh: In Search of the Snow Leopard

Off the beaten track.....and far from the madding crowd.

Xerxes Adrianwalla

4/4/20263 min read

My Ladakh trip was searching for the Snow Leopard, I went on an Snow Leopard Expedition and searched. This Snow Leopard Expedition is organized and lead by Mingyur Gya and is called the Panthera Expedition. It is very difficult and well nigh impossible to spot a Snow Leopard on one’s own as one is bereft of spotters and an extensive grid of local spotters/guides. Also one cannot go in the mountains on ones own.

The Snow Leopard’s thick white-gray coat, spotted with large rosettes, blends in perfectly with Ladakh’s steep and rocky and snowy mountains. The soft thick pads, the long bushy tail (a natural scarf) all serve a function. This perfect camouflage renders them all but invisible, earning them the name: the “Ghost of the Mountains”.

Bowing to the prayer flags (and acclimatising in the bargain) we set out to find the Snow Leopard. We saw a Eurasian Magpie, Woolly Hare and a lone Bharal, at different times during the expedition.

The Blue Sheep (Bharal), Ladakh Urials, and Ibex (too distant to photograph); all put on a show, and what a show it was. Anyone would have been enough to gladden the heart, but all three… These are the prey of the Snow Leopard, and it is the reason the Snow Leopards descend from the high mountains. They follow prey. Humans are not the prey of the Snow Leopard, in fact they have become quite used to humans, coming quite close.

We were lucky in that a Red Fox, decided that the Snow Leopard’s kill was a tasty meal. In order to protect its kill, the Snow Leopard stalked the fox and chased it away. This is the closest I have seen a Snow Leopard.

The other Snow Leopards (three of them) were at a distance, a seeming spot on the landscape. In my next life I want to be a Snow Leopard, eat at infrequent intervals and sleep all the time. Sometimes I wonder if our children, or their children will see the Snow Leopard, or will it become a tale in history.