Twenty years ago, in Ladakh’s trans-Himalayan landscape, I had my first encounter with the elusive snow leopard (Panthera uncia). Over the years, with each new sighting and meeting different breeds of ‘snow leopard wallas’, I have observed how our ideas about relating ourselves to this majestic animal have changed over time.
Increasingly, the act of sighting snow leopards has been reduced to something banal by the tourism industry, perversely rebranded as the ‘business FOR conservation’.
Now, it seems that going to the mountains in search of meaning is not done anymore. An obsessive focus on profit underscores the poverty of the irreverent soul. Back then, one could simply venture alone into the wilderness to behold the mountains where snow leopards roamed. Upon relying merely on a pair of binoculars and the strength to climb, these formidable mountain predators could be ‘sighted’ in ways that lend true meaning to their epithet — the ghost of the mountains.
My first snow leopard sighting was so long ago and the changes in how people now approach these sightings are so stark, that I could tell it in the third person.
On a rainy morning in July 2006, he began his hike into the mountains, cutting across the elevated flatlands of the ancient Indus basin. Crossing over to the left bank of the Indus, he headed toward Rumbak village in Hemis National Park. Walking on Earth’s crust just south of the Indus Suture, he was on a separate tectonic plate.
Standing only a metr and a half tall, he was dwarfed between the Stok and Ladakh ranges towering 3,000 metres above him. Striding across the wide valley between these ranges — 15 kilometres wide and stretching 20 kilometres ahead — his forward movement seemed almost imperceptible. He moved, and the Stok Kangri to his left seemed to move with him, like the moon following a moving vehicle.
After four hours, he entered the narrow valley of Zing-chan nullah. Incessant rains over the past week had caused immense destruction to the desert landscape. Sporadic cloudbursts and flash floods had washed away entire villages in some parts of Ladakh. That morning in Zing-chan Valley, the fast-flowing nullah had swept away all the wooden bridges. Its cold waters and strong currents would have made the crossings impossible for him as a solo hiker. Although the rains had kept most trekkers away, he met a group of three and teamed up with them, linking arms to cross the stream multiple times. After six hours of hiking, he reached Rumbak late in the afternoon.
The next morning, at dawn’s first light, he stood at the base of a five-kilometre-long ridge running roughly east-west, looming behind Rumbak village. Its barren sandy slopes, scattered moraines, deep gullies, and rocky outcroppings offered no sense of scale. He was told it would take two hours to reach the ridgeline.
Halfway up the slope, he spotted a herd of bharal grazing, and for an hour he climbed with them in view. As he got closer, the herd split into two groups and fled: one group ran directly for the ridgeline, while the other took a slight detour before regrouping at the top.
But one female bharal held back, wary of something behind a side ridge. She moved cautiously along the contour trail — stepped forward and paused, craning her neck to peer around a bend, before striding forward again. He saw bharal’s caution as a clue — a signal that propelled him to quickly climb up to a parallel trail above her. Mimicking her caution, he moved with measured steps, and together, they turned the bend in perfect sync.
As he moved carefully along the higher, shorter contour, the bharal strutted cautiously on the longer contour below. Suddenly, as he rounded a bend, the entire stretch of the main ridge opened up in front of him, with the deep Rumbak valley to his right.
Amid the vast landscape, his eyes quickly fixed on a shape — the form of an animal sprawled next to a rocky outcrop in a saddle of the main ridge. Its pale coat stood out against the reddish soil. It was a snow leopard.
The distance between him and the snow leopard was around 350 metres. He swiftly scrambled up to the ridgeline, crossing from the south face to the north and covering the distance on the run. Then, with great stealth, he crossed back to the south face, the side where the snow leopard lay sleeping.
A descending side ridge ran perpendicular to the main ridge, and he approached along its blind side. Stopping at a faint, less gravelly trail running across his descent, he found himself about 20 metres from the snow leopard. But he was drawn to get even closer. A large boulder, 10 metres away from the sleeping animal, offered a better perch. He took a few steps forward; the snow leopard remained undisturbed. More steps, and it continued to sleep. That final approach, covering 20 metres in full view of the snow leopard, was perhaps the most effortless movement he had ever made. His walk was swift and silent — as if he too were a ghost — not casting shadows, not even perturbing the light.
Perched on the boulder, he aimed his SLR camera at the snow leopard, which lay sprawled in a state of careless abandon, limbs stretched in a posture almost lacking grace. Behind it, on a rocky ledge, lay the remains of a young bharal. He hesitated for a few moments before taking pictures, for between himself and the snow leopard hung a profound silence — a silence in which the mind awakens to meet the primal and humanity intersects with nature.
He took a few pictures. At the sound of the camera shutter, the snow leopard stirred. He was in its clear view. It raised its head, and he remained still. He took a few more pictures, and the snow leopard continued to observe him intently.
Then, with his camera frozen in hand, he lifted his gaze above the viewfinder — he needed to watch the animal and bear witness. Their eyes locked. His breath was steady and the snow leopard’s chest heaved. Aware of each frame on the 36-exposure film roll, he waited.
After a few moments, the snow leopard shifted. It drew in its front right leg, then the front left, and finally the hind right. As it crouched, the snow leopard’s torso rolled, revealing the full left flank. He had returned to looking into the eyepiece and continued to shoot.
The snow leopard remained still, head steady, eyes fixed on him. He paused his clicking. Then it made its move. It lifted itself a few inches above the ground, scanned the path ahead, darted a glance at the bharal carcass, and, with a final look back at him, crawled past the kill.
Then rising fully onto its legs, it stepped behind the ledge and vanished from sight. For about five minutes, he had sat just ten metres away from a wild snow leopard — on its turf and entirely on its terms.
After five more minutes, he could hear the broken gurgling sounds of the Rumbak nullah rising up to where he sat. And, at 4,500 metres, under the deep blue sky and silvery white clouds, in the alternatingly comforting sunshine and chill of cloud shadows, a light, cool breeze was gently blowing into his face.
Going solo may be best for such pursuits. But, this is not to be anymore — given that the Forest Department needs to impose ticketing restrictions on the growing number of tourists and their unruly ways. Moreover, the naturalists from the past who were in search of meaning have been crowded out by tourists in search of pretty pictures. And the present naturalists on the professional service of ‘spotting and showing’ have nothing more to do than pointing at an animal.
“An old-growth forest, a clear river, the flight of a golden eagle, the howl of a wolf, the vitality of a tiger, space and quiet without motors, TVs, mobiles — these are intangibles. Those are the values that people need, that uplift our spirit,” George Schaller had said. However, the tourism-cantered conservation model fosters a transactional relationship with nature, one that is deaf to this need in humans.
A different approach to conservation, however, recognises non-urban communities — whose livelihoods are closely tied to the land — as key stakeholders in conservation. Such an approach allows for an articulation of the spiritual values that snow leopards hold for local people: the farmer in the field, the pastoralist on the plateau, and the monk in the monastery.
Does every human — so readily alienable from their environment — not need to comprehend their relationship with the natural world, more frequently than once in a lifetime?
Views expressed are the author’s own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth