Snow Leopard Expedition Day 9

Watch No 10 – didn’t care about Leopard this morning as still on a high from yesterday. So only did an hours watch before going to breakfast and afterwards we decided to walk back up to Rumbak village. It seems that none of are fully acclimatised and we are still getting mild headaches and stuffy noses full of dried blood, which is no doubt exaggerated by the dry, dusty atmosphere. The walk up to the village is on a slight incline and we were all out of breath at various points of the walk. But I was glad to get another view of the Solitary Snipe along the small stream and I even managed to get a few record photos before it inevitably flew away when a noisy villager walked past us shouting his head off to someone else in the village. 

Solitary Snipe

Around the small fields in the village we came across a group of Tibetan Partridges and they were rather more confiding than the snipe and showed quite well. 

Tibetan Partridges

There were 8+ Streaked Rosefinches and plenty of Robin Accentors around, but no Great or Common Rosefinches today. We walked to the far side of the village and found a Mountain Weasel before Ganesh took us to a homestay in the village where we had some tea.

Mountain Weasel

A few hours rest around camp was followed by Watch No 11 – and all we had to show for our efforts were more Blue Sheep. 

Blue Sheep

Then we had another nice meal and a few more beers. 

The dining tent

Tonight's pizza

The deal is you are usually finished eating by 7pm when it’s dark and chilly and there’s nothing to do apart from chat in the dining tent. You don’t want to go to bed too early either. Pete says we haven’t come to enjoy ourselves, we’re here to see Snow Leopard…! And we have!

Snow Leopard Expedition Day 8

Watch No 8 - blank. Did see a Mountain Weasel by the camp this morning. It was much colder when we surfaced from the tents at 5.15am and feeling grubby! The anticipation is mounting as we only have 3 more days here to find this damn elusive Snow Leopard. I’ve been sleeping better and we are all getting more used to camp life. It’s extremely dry and quite dusty here but much better than camping in the peak Leopard viewing months of February & March (in my opinion) when for me the cold (down to -30 degrees centigrade) would be unbearable. Still, I’m optimistic about our chances, although the fear of dipping is putting a cloud over the whole experience. Where the hell is this Leopard?

The crew brought breakfast up to us at the watch point above camp and the meal was again excellent. Then the 4 of us walked up the valley towards Yurutse but only got as far as the second valley. It was only to relive the boredom really and to get some exercise. Anyway, we were glad to get some distant Tibetan Partridges and 2 pairs of Guldenstadt’s (White-winged) Redstarts this morning. Most of the birds one would expect to see later in the year have not returned from their breeding grounds much higher up the mountains yet. Oh and I’ve forgot to mention we’ve had some rodents running over our bags that are stashed in the tent annexe directly behind my head when I’m sleeping, and they make quite a noise! And we all had a lovely bucket wash as well, so now we are feeling great!

Camp life goes on....

So we began Watch No 9 at 3.15pm. All of this time I’ve been wanting somebody to shout out “I’ve got the Leopard”. Well at 4.10pm it was me! I scanned a distant hillside about a kilometre away and panned the scope across a rocky outcrop and then panned back as something caught my eye. I looked at a pale blob for a minute when all of a sudden a head turned and I was looking at the head of the fabled Snow Leopard. I calmly said: I have got it, I’ve got a Snow Leopard”. 

Just spotted the Snow Leopard

Then all hell broke loose as directions were given and I put the other scopes on the beast. And I didn’t even swear! With everyone on it I walked behind them and punched the air like Jurgen Klopp in celebration. Oh the relief! Then we were shaking hands and bear hugs all round. I then frantically tried to phonescope some images but the heat haze and distance made it impossible to obtain anything good, but the video through the iPhone worked ok and is better than nothing. After 15 minutes the Snow Leopard got up and we could see the whole body and the extraordinary long tail. It walked slowly along an open area between some large rocks, then downhill a bit before climbing up a steep section of rockface, scratched in a bare earthy area before walking off across a grassy slope and over the ridge – never to be seen again by us. Wow! 

In all it had been on view for 20 – 25 minutes and I couldn’t believe we had finally seen it. The jubilation, the excitement, tremendous high of finally catching up with the Grey Ghost of the Himalayas. I haven’t got the words! We did scoot up the valley to try and relocate it but that was a waste of time. So we returned to camp, celebrated, then celebrated some more. The Godfather beer tasted quite good tonight!

Let the celebrations begin...!

Snow Leopard Expedition Day 7

Watch No 6 – Nothing again. After breakfast we hiked 4 kilometres down the Rumbak Valley and up into the Husing Valley where we stayed at the watch point from 10.30am – 2pm. It was a steep slope up to the watch point but what a view we had from the top and this is one of the main Leopard watching areas in Hemis. But I think it’s primarily a winter viewing area as its much lower down than the one we have been using in the Rumbak Valley, although saying that a Leopard was seen here last week. Anyway, the four of us were left here for quite some time and the silence was totally pure. If you’ve ever experienced the utter silence one gets when in some isolated mountain then you know what I mean. Its kind of beautiful. But then the coughing and spitting from ‘you know who’ began after a few hours and the silence was broken! It was very refreshing to be able to scan some different areas and to view some different scenery.

Walking up to the Husing Valley view point

The view from the watch point

Getting bored.....

Nice viewing in the Husing Valley

Husing Valley

Husing Valley

Anyway, we were all feeling rather dirty today and in need of a proper wash – there’s only so much you can do with baby wipes! I’m also having some trouble catching my breath today at this altitude and am struggling a bit today despite only walking around 11kms this morning. The bird highlight this morning was a pair of Red-fronted Serins perched up nicely in the morning sunshine.

Lunch was brought to us at the watch point by our ever attentive ground crew – amazing service. Then we began walking back to camp in the hot early afternoon sunshine, which made it quite a tough walk. Sometimes we’d get some cloud cover and the temperature would drop dramatically, so out would come our fleeces from our day packs. And that’s another issue as you do need to carry a day pack with your bits n pieces, and I’m also carry a scope & tripod and a big Nikon camera and lense as well. All this seemed to weigh a lot more than usual as it’s so hot.

Getting back to camp

Our camp

Time to start scanning again

The view

Anyway, we returned to camp at 3.50pm, had a cup of tea and chilled for a while as we were all knackered. Then it was up to the meadow above camp for Watch No 7 – and again we drew a blank. But it’s been a good day and nice to see a new area.

Snow Leopard Expedition Day 6

Watch No 4 – there’s a Leopard tracker guiding a couple from Australia here now and he claims to have seen a Snow Leopard whilst scanning this morning. The only thing is that none of us actually saw it and he was only standing 30 yards away from us at the time. So a close call or pure string – I don’t know. 

Rumbak Village

The scenery around the village is stunning

Yours truly

View from above the village

So after breakfast we walked up the valley for a kilometre to Rumbak Village. It was an easy, slightly uphill walk, which we all enjoyed and the highlight for me was seeing a Solitary Snipe, albeit a relatively brief view. I'd definitely like to come back and getter a longer view as it's a lifer for me. In the village they had recently harvested the local crop of grass & wheat, and the remaining seeds were drawing in 10+ Streaked Rosefinches, a couple of Great Rosefinches, lots of Common Rosefinches and numerous House Sparrows. We also came across a flock of Robin Accentors, a few Red-fronted Serins, Black Redstart, Woolly Hare and Tickell’s Leaf Warbler, which made a very pleasant change to the practically birdless lower valley where we are based. I spent some time taking photos and despite the harsh light managed a few decent images.

Chukar

This Robin Accentor was too close...

Female Streaked Rosefinches

Male Streaked Rosefinch

Juv Common Rosefinch

After lunch back in camp we had a break in the lovely sunshine before doing Watch No 5. We again failed to see any Leopards. But now there are lots of Blue Sheep spread across every hillside. I certainly feel a lot more optimistic about our chances now! Have to say that Ganesh’s rum was much appreciated tonight! And it now seems that the temperature is dropping every evening and it’s much colder tonight.

Snow Leopard Expedition Day 5

Had a poor night’s sleep (maybe 4 hours tops) but the temperature wasn’t too bad and was a few degrees above freezing. But sharing a tent isn’t my idea of fun and there’s not much room inside. Anyway, we all woke up feeling crappy but having a baby wipe wash was a godsend and I was ‘good to go’. There was a bowl of hot water waiting for us later to wash in. A good tip is to keep your nightwear (thermals etc) just for wearing at night, as it’s nice to get into clean bed clothes each night. 

Masked Wagtail - the commonest bird up here

Another common bird here - Chukar

Anyway, we made our 2^nd Leopard Watch from 5.45am – 8.45am, had breakfast and then resumed from 9.15am – 11.00am. But no Leopards. We did see many Himalayan Snowcocks, flocks of Chukars, Himalayan Griffons, Masked Wagtail, Blue Sheep, and not a lot else.

More scanning

During lunchtime the temperature soared to 22 degrees centigrade. As we sat eating lunch a Blue Sheep with a large bite taken out of its side was seen running along a nearby track. Our immediate thoughts were that there must be a Leopard nearby and we jumped up to scan the huge expanse of mountain slope in front of us, but there wasn’t any sign at all. So instead of our planned hike up to Rumbak Village we spent the whole afternoon scanning from the watch point above camp, but to no avail. It gets dark just after 6.45pm so we walked back to camp just before sunset.

Snow Leopard Expedition Day 4

Left the hotel at 7am and drove down to the Indus River where we were greeted by light rain and a strong wind, so we didn’t spend much time birding here. 

Looked like we were in for bad weather along the indus River

From here the road wound its way through a scenic, steep-sided valley and we began to realise the enormity of the task ahead. At Zinchan we reached the end of the road and then had to trek 4kms on a rough track through an amazingly steep-sided river valley. The scenery was very impressive and at this altitude of around 4000m we took it very slowly indeed.

The start of the Rumbak Gorge

Here's the horses carrying our camping gear & luggage

This is a view of the other side of the Rumbak Gorge

We made it to the camp around midday and found out that the 4 of us would have to share as there were only 2 tents, despite prior requests for us to have a tent each! I was not very happy at all..!! But there was nothing for it but to get on with it as we were in such an isolated location. Lunch was great and then we began scanning from the small meadow above camp. 

Here's the view all around us from our scanning place

Realisation set in as we now knew how practically near-impossible it is to find a Snow Leopard. We had a vast area of stark, grey mountains, slopes, scree etc to scan all around us. The weather was getting warmer this afternoon, despite having had snow, sleet and rain on the walk up the valley. So we scanned, and scanned, and scanned. But no Leopards. We did get Golden Eagle and Lammergeier, Red-billed & Alpine Choughs, Blue Whistling-Thrush and 3 Himalayan Snowcocks found by Pete.

It's starting to get colder...

Once the sun had dipped below the mountain tops the temperature dropped dramatically and we quickly donned our fleeces! Oh boy, I’m not looking forward to tonight..!