Snow Leopard Trip Report 2023

Kibber Wildlife Sanctuary, Himalayas, India
January 19 - 31, 2023
Trip # 1 / 2023

January 21, 2023 - Officially day one of the expedition in Spiti, and WE KILLED IT! 4 snow leopards. FOUR!!! We had a mom with two cubs and a big male in one area. The male was the father of the cubs, so no stress over him killing them. We spent all day with the cats, it was great. When we planned out this trip, I was hoping we would see one cat, but to see four in one day already exceeded my expectations.

When we got the call this morning we were checking out of our homestay in the village of Kaza, which is about 45 minutes away from Kibber. We stayed there to help us climatize to the higher altitudes. Kaza is around twelve thousand feet above sea level, So we slept there, before coming to Kibber, which is 14,000 feet. I have a serious headache dealing with the altitude. I’ve taken some meds and I am hoping it will settle after a day or two. I am hoping everyone in our group does well with the altitude, you just never know how it will effect you.

It really was an epic first day with the cats. When we got to the spot, there was already a few photographers there, I didn’t realize how many shooters would be here. I should have known there would be a few… I mean, it’s a snow leopard. But until you are out here you just don’t know. 

It was great first day, the weather was beautiful and the animals were perfection. The cats pretty much slept the whole time we were there, but at one point the big male got up from his nap, stretched and then climbed down the wall of the mountain and walked off into its white wilderness, giving all of us a chance to get some images of it before it disappeared. Their coats blend so well with their environment, it’s easy to see why these cats earned the nickname ghost cats.

From where we were shooting the cats were really far off. I brought an 800mm lens with me, but damn I wish I had more lens than that. I forgot my 1.4 converter, because Markus accidentally packed it away in his bag this morning before we left, so all I had was my 800. He swears he didn’t do it on purpose, but I know he did. lol

So far the experience has been everything I hoped it would be. The mountain men (our sherpas), who are helping us, are amazing. Super attentive and very helpful. I chose a great host to help us out.

The good thing is, this is only day one and thankfully we got the pressure of seeing the cat out of the way. We have eight days left and everything we see now is a bonus, and we can all enjoy the experience fully.

It is 9PM and I am in bed getting some rest, hoping to sleep off this headache finally. Over all a great first day, tomorrow it starts again. 

January 22, 2023 - Day two kicked off right away. The mother and her two cubs from yesterday are still around. They have a blue sheep they killed that is keeping them close. They were actively feeding on it and we spent about five hours with them. We ended up leaving though because there was a big thing happening with the locals. It seems the two neighboring towns were at odds with a wildlife law that I did not quite understand. Up here the people that live in the villages are all related to each other, so the arguments got pretty heated. The woman were getting animated, and one of the girls, came over to the photographers and told us all, that we couldn’t take pictures of the snow leopard because it was on their side of the mountain, it was quite insane. Crazy local politics.

So we decided it would be best to leave. It had been five hours already. We went back up. It was a slow slog, as we are still getting used to the altitude, and it is hard on the body. I sat down to rest on the way up the trail, winded. An older lady, (one of the villagers), who was also walking up made fun of me. I didn’t know what she said, but she made a comment as she was looking at me, and a guy standing next to her laughed. I know I mentioned that all the locals were amazing up here… they are, except for her. lol

We got back to our rooms and decided to have a look at the town. Our host IndraJeet showed us around, and we had a look inside a locals home. Super simple, thick adobe style walls, wood burning stoves. They were interesting homes here, the one we visited even had stables inside for the cows when it was too cold.

He also took us to the Kibber Buddhist monastery and it was beautiful. Maybe it was in my head, but the energy of the place was electric. The hair on my entire body stood up, I felt it inside me. I am not sure if it was just me making it up in my mind, or what it was, but I felt something powerful. There was definitely something spiritual about this place, it was wonderful. I’m not much on organized religions, but if I was, I think I could be a Buddhist. 

January 23, 2023 - Day three. Well no snow leopards today. We have four spotters that go out each morning at 6AM to the different areas where the cats are known too frequent, but no cats have been spotted so far. So we went out looking for Ibex and blue sheep. We found blue sheep and spent the morning with them. They were very far away so not sure how the images are going to look? Might delete them all. 

We returned to the homestay for lunch, and then after we were going to go look for red foxes, but the locals were busy in a meeting with their neighbor town again, so we didn’t go look for them. Instead they took us to Key Monastery, which is an old monastery site that was built around the year 1000. Of course it got destroyed by Mongolians during the war, then rebuilt, then destroyed again. Then rebuilt for a final time in 1975. We looked at some amazing statues of saints that faced the setting sun. It really was beautiful. I rolled the rollers and said a prayer.

Emily and Anna went up into the monastery. However, Greg, Magali, Markus and I chose to stay in the parking lot and wait for them. I felt bad for not going in, but in the end I am glad I stayed. The boys who have been helping us carry our gear, our sherpas, were outside the monastery playing kick ball with an old green plastic laundry bottle. It was so neat to watch them. I filmed them with the prayer flags blowing and the mountain in the back ground. It was like a scene out of Walter Mitty. It really was beautiful. 

Over all an underwhelming day of looking for wildlife, but I am still happy, everything was beautiful and our guests were happy, and that is all that matters to me. Tomorrow we head out again to find those ghost cats. And some foxes, and I do really want an Ibex too. 

January 24, 2023 - Day Four. Politics continue. There is a town meeting regarding the snow leopards and the two warring villages  continue negotiations over the rights to money, and wildlife and so on. It is sad, but I am guessing necessary as one village believes Kibber has an unfair advantage. I don’t know and hope the issues get properly resolved so we can go find some cats. Our hope is to see some cats today at much closer distance, as the cats we have seen so far have been crazy far away. Maybe even some prey animals. We still have five more days up here to find wildlife. crazy. 

We left around 11AM to go looking for blue sheep and snow leopards. We didn’t find any cats but we found the blue sheep, and damn did we find them. We were able to snap some very close images of them and we all were super happy. The last two days the photos I have captured have been really crappy, but today I finally captured images I am happy with. Thankfully. I was super bummed and not at all happy with what I have been seeing. But today I got quite a few keepers. 

We also snapped some decent images of a Himalayan vulture, It was sitting on a rock by the roadside and we all were able to get some decent images of it. It was snowing so it made photographing it a challenge. But I got a couple of keepers out of it. Overall a good day of wildlife. I think everyone enjoyed it. I will find out during dinner. I know I am super happy. 

January 25, 2023 - Day 5. Today was a great day of wildlife. Politics have seemed to have been settled for now, which is good.

A cat was sighted and we got the call. We were getting dressed and my sherpa, Kelsang, comes rushing into my room, calls me outside and to hurry up. A bearded vulture (the bone eater), was hovering right outside our homestay, and it was so close. I managed to snap a few images of it. It landed and I snapped shots of it on the snow, then it flew again. It was hanging around so we kept shooting, but our boys told us we needed to go, reminding us of the cat sighting. I was a bit reluctant to leave, this vulture was awesome, it was watching us the whole time, super interesting. My mind is spinning on this one. It truly was a gift from nature for us. 

We left to the sight where the cat was spotted. One of the trucks that was supposed to take us, broke down, so half of the group went, and the other half was going to wait for the truck to return and give us a ride. We decided to not wait and instead walked in the direction of where the truck was going. It was a nice walk and felt good. I am getting stronger, or at least my lungs are. Greg, Magali, and I all walked until our truck picked us up. 

When we arrived there, we had to hike to the spot. Now that was hard, but it wasn’t terrible, the cat they found was down low and very far away. However they spotted a second cat in a much better area about a half mile away so we decided to go see this one. It was a crazy decision, because we had to hike up a very steep hill. Now that was hard core, and was exhausting. I thought Markus was going to die on me, I thought I was going to die on me. lol It really was tough. 

While we sat there, we had the two snow leopards. One was up high, the other was down low. We watched them for couple of hours. Not much was going on. They were sleeping mostly. We were there for about an hour when a snow cloud rolled through, killing our visibility. Then another one rolled in, and another, and another. We decided to wait it out and see if it would go away, but it did not. So we called it a day and went back to the homestay. 

We had lunch at the homestay trying to wait out the weather, but the weather stayed super windy with more rolling snow clouds, mucking things up. We decided to just stay in. In the distance I saw a big herd of yaks on the mountainside. It turns out these are the villages yaks. Every year the locals turn the animals loose to graze wild, until they need them in the spring for help working in the fields. The yaks were returning to the village because of the snow storm, they wanted to come home and hide from the weather and get a proper meal.

January 26, 2023 - Day Six - It is a beautiful beautiful day. The sun is out, last night the clouds left a fresh layer of snow on the ground, so it is nice and warm and just gorgeous. A hell of a good way to begin the day. The scouts went out to see if we can find a cat. So far the cats have all been super far away. I am hoping for something way closer for a chance at some portrait images. I am very happy with a few of the images I got of the cat. But I would really love a portrait shot of one. Something nice and close so I can see its beautiful blue eyes. We have four full days to go. Let’s see what nature gifts us with. 

The trip is already a success, 3 days of snow cats, and blue sheep and two species of raptors. All we need are some Ibex and a close up cat and this trip will be a raging success. 

Altitude sickness is behind all of us now, thankfully. We discovered that the headaches some of us have been getting at night are from the wood fire stoves. The use of kerosine to start the fires and the fact that the stoves use the rooms oxygen to keep the fires lit is what we think has been giving us headaches. So we are trying something new, we keep them lit until about 10-11pm and then allow them to die out. After that sleep rolls in and it seems to be helping with the pounding heads.

Today was a good day, no cat sightings sadly and not much of anything else during the day. We explored around a lot, some snow fall kept us from visiting parts of the mountain. The snow blocked up the roads. At the end of the day we saw a herd of Ibex headed down the mountain. Myself, Greg and Magali decided to try and get closer shots of them in the failing light. Shooting wise it was a disaster. I am more than sure I got nothing but some proof of life stuff. It was still a lot of fun trying to get closer to them. The light over the mountain was kicking though. It was so beautiful.

Right before we found the Ibex, I screwed up and caused a flat in our jeep, I was kicking snow out of the rim of the jeep, trying to help the tire’s balance, instead I kicked the air valve and it cracked open, causing the jeep to go flat. I felt like shit about that. That was a crap way to end the day for the boys, because they had to fix it. I offered to help but they wouldn’t have it.  

Tomorrow morning we are headed out at 7:30AM to try and photograph the Ibex we encountered as they head back up the mountain. The Ibex sleep on the lower steep cliff walls to help protect them from predators. Seems crazy but thats what they do. Once dawn returns, they head back up the mountain to forage. Fingers crossed they will be there when get there.

January 27, 2023 - Day Seven - We left early this morning in search of Ibex. We found them, right where we left them last night. They were sleeping on the rock ledges, a safe place for them to sleep away from predators. It was a long ass walk to get to where the Ibex were. A long exhausting walk. But it was worth it, we got decently close to the animals. 

There is a guy we met from Iceland who is here with another group. We met him on our first day here, is a nice guy. He beat us out there and was out with the Ibex first. My concern was that he was going to scare the Ibex away before we got a chance to photograph them. I was right, but it wasn’t the people that scared the Ibex off, it was the dogs that followed us from the village. 

I watched from a distance as the Ibex all hauled ass back up the mountain. I almost called it a day, but thankfully not all the Ibex took off running. There was a small herd of five males, a female and her lamb, or billy, that stayed sleeping on the ledge. So I hiked down to get a closer look at the animals and we stayed all morning with them.

The Ibex spent the morning sleeping in the sun on the ledge, warming up from a chilly night. We waited hours for them to move, but they were not moving. Finally our guides told that us that we had to leave, so we did.

I didn’t want to leave because I was waiting for a specific shot, but it was time. As we were getting up to leave the Ibex finally decided to begin their trek back up the mountain, and I finally got my chance to try for my dream shot. I don’t know if I got it? But I did like the few shots I captured.

January 28, 2023 - Day Eight. I got sick. Montezumas revenge reared its ugly head. Both Markus and I got sick. Markus got it worse than I did, I was exhausted and decided to rest all day. The crew went out and found a couple of foxes, and blue sheep. I am bummed I was not able to get out there with them, but I was drained of energy. I am already starting to feel better after an afternoon of rest. Tomorrow is our final day and I am still hoping for our close up cat. Markus still feeling like shit, but said he is slowly feeling better as well. 

This has been a hell of an adventure so far.

January 29, 2023 - Day 9 - Last day seeking out wildlife. Sadly no reports for any wildlife today. Our scouts have found nothing. They found some snow leopard pug marks (tracks), but no cats. After lunch, some of the group went out to see the pug marks. I stayed in, I am feeling better, but still a bit exhausted from that stomach bug. Overall it was an amazing trip, three days with snow leopards for a total of six different cats. My hope was just to see one on this trip, so seeing six of one of the hardest cats in the world to find is definitely a great accomplishment. We also got blue sheep, Ibex, foxes, and a couple of birds of prey species. For wildlife that lives on the top of the world it definitely exceeded my expectations. The local crew that helped me organize everything was amazing, and the mountains are beyond magical. This trip is everything I dreamed it would be… and more.

I am not going to pretend it is easy. This trip is hard, and every photo you take up here is earned, nothing is given to you. But I wouldn’t have it any other way. This cat is one of the least photographed of the big cats and is deserving of the title, the ghost cat.

No words can truly express my gratitude to the beautiful people who hosted us, and the the amazing souls who shared this adventure with me. I am blessed that this was how and where we kicked off our 2023 season. Of course I am already looking forward to our return next year. I still dream of getting that portrait shot of the ghost cat, visiting the inside of the old monastery, and seeing and sharing time again with my new friends, those beautiful crazy souls who live up on the top of the world… well except for that old lady who laughed at me, but nobody likes her anyway. lol

Thank you for reading and I will see you out in the world… somewhere…anywhere!