Do you want to film a snow cat? Ladakh's the place to see snow leopards
For the people of Ladakh in northern India, the 'grey ghost', as they call the snow leopard, has turned from cattle-killing menace to income-generating cohabiter, writes Daniel Allen.
High up in the Ulley Valley, the late afternoon air is thin and bitterly cold. Hunkered down in a rocky cleft, Tsewang Namgyal scans the snow-dusted slopes with battered binoculars, his prematurely lined face testament to the harsh, high altitude environment of Ladakh. Here in India's Himalayan north, tracking the "grey ghost" has always been a physically demanding undertaking.
"Twice in my life I've seen a snow leopard," says Namgyal, shoehorning his body further between two moss-covered boulders to light a cigarette. "People call it the 'grey ghost' because it comes and goes and nobody knows it's there. In the Ladakhi language we also call it the ' '. People have lived here all their lives and have never seen one, so I guess I'm lucky."
With wisps of smoke rising from a couple of mud brick buildings on the valley floor below, a herder rounds up livestock, the sound of human cries and yak bells faint on the breeze. The sinking sun bathes the flanks of nearby ridges in fleeting warmth, as dark clouds roll across the serrated, snow-clad horizon.
Namgyal calls a halt to today's big-cat quest.
WATCH a snow leopard filmed in Ulley by WildFilmsIndia
"Ladakh is the land of many passes," says the guide, picking his way down a scree-covered slope with ease. "In the past they said the land here was so harsh and the passes so numerous that only the best of friends or the worst of enemies would visit you. At over 4,000 metres, we should still respect the weather."
