You know what they say about amateur mountaineers? About how for each one that has scaled Mount Everest, there are a dozen hardy sherpas who have led, guided, cut paths, fixed ropes, and (literally) done all the heavy lifting? The same is true for snow leopard-trackers, as I learn first-hand during my visit to the trans-Himalaya region of Ladakh in north India.
At the crack of dawn, they sit on the cold ground with their eyes glued to their optical scopes, scanning the ridgelines in the distant hills for the snow leopard. All this in high-altitude territory, above 3,700 meters (12,139 feet) in below-freezing temperatures.
Snow leopards are found only in a handful of countries in Asia, and while details of the exact numbers are fuzzy for a variety of reasons—not least because they are solitary creatures that live across large swathes of barren, unexplored land—a survey conducted in India in early 2024 put the number at 718, with 477 to be found in Ladakh alone.
These numbers may seem small, but the snow leopard is one of the rare animals whose conservation status has been downgraded by the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature), from Severely Endangered to Vulnerable. While the move is highly contested by champions of this big cat, there is no doubt that the local community at Hemis National Park, my base, cares deeply for them.