Stirring Point

*The following is from my journey to Ladakh, India, in March 2022, in search of snow leopards.

The morning sun crested the eastern ridge of the Sham Valley, warming the contents of its path as it moved. It peered through windows, past half-closed curtains, and pried sleeping eyes from the last bits of dreaming. Legs stretched, fingers wiggled, and bodies stirred. A new day arrived, one holding anticipation, promise, and hope. I sat up in bed and listened to the gentle patter of feet above me on the second floor. My knees and ankles cracked as I stood. I walked to the window and peeled back the fabric, exposing the heart of the valley. A mélange of burnt orange, violet, and burgundy filled the sky. I wanted time to stop. I wanted the entire world to see this glow.

It was late March 2022 in Central Ladakh, and I’d accompanied a group of American travelers to Mangyu, an ancient village tucked away in the northern reaches of India. The journey was filled with reasons unique to each traveler: serenity in the Zanskar Mountains, the promise of equanimous Buddhist temples, nature’s soothing balm on chapped minds. Yet we all drank from the same cup. We were in search of the elusive snow leopard and made our journeys to the mountains like religious pilgrims to a holy site. High-altitude snowfields and rocky ridgelines filled with prey stand as the cat’s natural habitat. The region brought promise and we’d come for a hopeful glimpse. We were fully aware of Mother Nature’s penchant for disturbing plans, as well as her indifference to our desires. I wanted it this way—owed nothing, except a sliver of chance.

 I slipped on my wool socks, weathered khakis, and a fleece jacket. I tip-toed to the door and gently leaned into the silver handle, careful not to wake those in nearby rooms. Pulling the door shut, I walked to the main lodge entrance and stepped into the brisk mountain air. The early morning felt like a juicy secret, private in its construction and waiting to be savored.   

 The cool breeze hooked the inside of my collar and shot chills down my spine. I rounded the corner and found two local spotters perched near the edge of the driveway. Their scopes were aimed towards the ridgelines of the surrounding valley walls, like surveyors shooting a laser plane. The naked eye is ill-prepared for spotting in this terrain. 25-50x magnification eyepieces, along with apochromatic HD fluoride glass elements, do the heavy lifting—or so I am told. The real work is done by the spotters. Without them, wild snow leopards are mostly phantom ghosts of history: mythic creatures discussed around campfires or spotted on the occasional camera trap image.

 When used by an untrained eye, even the best scopes on the planet are insufficient in this terrain. Spotters are drawn to disrupted patterns, erratic movements, and “out of place” elements. Most spotters spend their entire lives in this valley, or damn near it, knowing the weight of the air in the afternoon or the smell of 6 a.m. as it rises from the earth. For days on end, they’ll inspect the surrounding valley ridges like jewelers with a loupe, searching diamonds for a flaw. They leave only during harvest season, assisting family and friends with crops in the lowlands—a communal endeavor that comes at the cost of their income. But heritage and support are their own forms of wealth, and the spotters are flush with this currency.

I stood near the scope, pre-caffeinated and hazy. The spotter stepped back and gestured with his torn glove to the massive wall on our left:

“Bharal sheep,” he said. 

“Where?” I asked, squinting towards the wall.

“The scope. Look through the scope,” he smirked.

Of course, I thought, feeling dull as a butterknife. I leaned forward, bringing my left eye to the rubber. My right eye closed naturally, relaxing my vision. A halo of darkness drew a circle within the sight, as if peering through a porthole window. The outline of my eyelashes cut lines in the top of my view. 

“Ah,” I said. “Three of them are on the ledge. Beautiful.”

I pulled back and gave a thumbs up. He smiled softly and dipped his eye back to the scope, searching again with generational patience—a byproduct of being born in a remote, 800-year-old village. I scanned the scene. Snow-capped peaks, along with arid bluffs, cast a cinematic backdrop behind the clay homes making up the village. Every structure in sight was topped with tattered Tibetan prayer flags flapping gently in the morning breeze. 

I returned to the lodge and slipped off my shoes. I walked the stairs to the second-floor common room, basking in its emptiness and settling into my routine. Benches topped with soft cushions ran half the periphery of the space. Coffee tables sat covered with unfolded maps of the region, displaying topography, distances, and contested borders. I walked to the corner hearth and warmed my hands around the cast iron stove. My fingers were stiff and welcomed the heat. I curled my knuckles into loose fists and blew warm air on my joints—cold being a timeless reminder of human fragility.

I walked to the table and poured myself some coffee from the carafe. I splashed a dollop of cream against the darkened surface, watching it swirl into the color of a paper bag. I pulled a cushion off a bench and climbed the next flight of stairs to the roof. I cracked the door, allowing the air to seep in, then stepped back into the morning. The rooftop felt like a perfect sanctuary to eviscerate any vestige of stress I’d lugged along from the U.S. No email, no phone, no computer. I placed the cushion on the earthen surface, sat cross-legged, and sipped my coffee. The mountain to my right was blanketed in snow, with gullies running down its chest like wide vertical stripes. Naked poplar tree tops added depth and texture to the landscape, while cream-white Buddhist stupas with golden spires guarded the valley’s length. I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, exhaling obligations, expectations, and impatience.

I returned to the communal area a half-hour later to find a room full of waking faces slurping tea and coffee. They smiled as they poured over the spread-out maps. The room was filled with purpose, and I drank it in. Here was a group of travelers united by shared excitement and a common goal. We were all eager to get moving, so the guide arranged a hike along the road from the base of the lodge. Spotters continued to scour the valley and beyond, sifting through camouflaged surfaces for any speck of evidence that might indicate a sighting. Every hour or so, updates and feedback would crackle across the radio to our guide, noting potentially promising areas to explore:

 “A snow leopard was spotted there five days ago,” a guide would share. 

 “An ibex carcass from a kill was left behind. Maybe it’ll return,” another would say.

 While awaiting their call, we collected as a group, packed our day bags, and took to the road to search the low walls of the valley, hoping for a nearby sighting. 

We followed a trickling off-shoot of the Indus River as it snaked south through the valley. Any sound or movement in the distance would cause us to stop and pull our binoculars from our chests to our eyes, scouring nearby scree fields and rocky talus shoots for any sign: a spotted tail, some fishing line whiskers, tufted ears above peering eyes. Urial and blue sheep sauntered across notches in varied cliff faces and over spines between adjacent mountains. But there were no snow leopards, and so the search continued.

We returned to the lodge for lunch, enjoying sauteed vegetables and stewed lentils, seasoned with hints of cardamom, nutmeg, and cumin. Heaping mounds of jasmine rice were passed back and forth, along with fresh baked naan and lightly charred roti. We ate, talked about travel, and reviewed the morning’s finds. After lunch, some retreated to their rooms for a short rest; some sat reading and journaling in the warmth of the afternoon sun. 

A few hours later, our guide appeared in the common room, pinched with nervous energy. I watched his hands wretch back and forth like he was wringing out a dishtowel. He rubbed his palms and cracked his knuckles. He whispered to the lodge manager with polite suspicion. He was equal parts guarded and eager, and I sensed he was ready to volley his excitement like a hot coal right into our laps.

“Good afternoon, everyone. I hope you are enjoying a lovely rest,” he said. “We’ve just received a radio report from the spotters near the lodge in Ulley. They have located a snow leopard about 45 minutes to an hour from here. There is a chance it may move by the time we get there, but I believe we should go,” he explained.

What a weight it must be to try and meet such expectations, I thought. This guiding team would turn their own skin inside out if they thought it’d yield a snow leopard for the group. Silent prayers seeped from his skin like perspiration. Please stay put, I thought. For the sake of our guide, his blood pressure, and his potential sleepless nights, please stay put.

The news electrified the air. We took 10 minutes to throw together our packs for the journey: a camera, binoculars, water, jackets, hats, and gloves. 7300 miles of travel to this very spot, for this very moment—and now, on a brisk Tuesday evening, hope was morphing into reality.

We hustled to the vans, strapped on our seatbelts, and held our breath. The sun would set in 1.5 hours, casting shadows over the valley and helping the day with its vanishing act. The guide impressed the urgency upon the drivers, which sent us ripping from the driveway, spraying stones and dust as we climbed in speed. The vans hugged rock-strewn corners and blind turns like rally cars, skirting sheer drop-offs above the distant valley floor. The roads were rugged, vertigo-inducing one-lane arteries linking village to village over ancient mountain passes. The drivers were impervious to it all, laughing and joking as they stomped between gas and brake. Their motions seem to predict every inch of road ahead, as if imbued with some prescient internal coding. The views of the valley felt timeless, exotic, and hostile.

Forty-five minutes into the drive, a crackling voice came through our radio.

“Slow down,” it said. 

 We were closing in. The vans eased their pace, turning the last corner and giving way to a group of spotters glued to their scopes. We creeped to a halt, gently pulled open the sliding doors and piled out in silence. The scopes were pointing to an angled snowfield in the distance, strewn with varied boulders and scree swept up in a morass of brown. People were smiling, spotters were beckoning, and mouths were agape.

I lifted my binoculars to a collection of rock, scrub brush, and snow patches. Making sense of the landscape felt impossible. Where the hell were they looking? A group pointed with confidence. Others gazed stoically towards the mountainside. 

Just then, a gentle hand in its torn glove grasped the rounds of my shoulder. I looked back to a warm smile stretched across weathered skin—my spotter from the morning. He gestured toward the wall.

“Snow leopard,” he pointed. 

I glared towards the tangled mass of incline and rock. “Where? Towards the snow, or the boulders?” I asked.

“The scope,” he grinned. “Look through the scope.” 

Of course, I thought as he looked on with a smile. Still as dull as a butterknife. I bent my head forward to the eyepiece, bringing my left eye to the rubber. My feet shifted, settling into the stones along the roadside. I exhaled slowly. The guide leaned toward my ear and walked me through the coordinates:

“Right of the snowfield. Two large boulders, one above the other. An ibex below in the clearing. On the lower boulder, a head,” he said.

I followed his directions. Right of the snowfield, two large boulders, an ibex below in the clearing. The lower boulder, the lower boulder, the lower boulder… “A head!” I gasped. The tufted ears, the fishing line whiskers, the peering eyes.

“Hunting ibex,” said the spotter. 

I inhaled, nearly choking on the excitement. Be present, I thought. I am here right now, seeing this. The enigma of these mountains and valleys—there he is. The leopard began rising with its own sense of generational patience, exposing shoulders, chest, and forelimbs.

“So beautiful,” I said, beckoning the spotter back to the scope. I stepped back, taking in the full mountain with my naked eye. No details leapt forward, only a mass of timeless beauty. A complete picture of nature stood towering above us in that quiet valley, indifferent to passing fads, political winds, and pressing deadlines. I was part of this landscape—we all were—and the bifurcation of artificial boundaries between normal life and nature peeled away. The snow leopard was not the prize, but a catalyst for awakening. Nature, in all her grandeur, was why I came.  

The spotter leaned forward, orienting himself once more before the easel of his scope.

“Ah, moving,” he said. “Good day.”