Driving north from Chandigarh to Kibber National Park in Himachal Pradesh on a snow leopard quest was as thrilling because it will get. The journey wasn’t straightforward. It took three days, with a few in a single day stops in Rampur and Tabo, and far of it was on hair-raising switch-backs with sheer drops however the surroundings simply stored getting higher. We arose from the plains into the paws of the nice beast, the trans-Himalayan mountains. As we climbed upwards the highway ran proper alongside the Satluj River. Further on, huge mud flats of the Spiti River Valley got here into view, with the skinny braid of the astonishingly blue Spiti River at their centre. Within the identical state, we had been going from a world of deodar forests, apple and apricot orchards to barren slopes of mud, scree and granite. Along with parathas, ma ki dal and paneer sabzi, the menus on the roadside dhabas started providing momos, noodles and thukpa soup. We left temples behind, and entered a world of Buddhist monasteries and prayer flags festooned on stupas and bridges. As we climbed larger, and it turned cooler, yaks roamed the wilds. Even the species of feral canines, Himalayan mastiffs, had been larger with thicker coats. And after Kaza, the final city with outlets and a fuel station, we effectively and really left the scrum of humanity behind us and entered a relaxed world of a handful of tiny villages. The Indians that inhabit flat-roofed three-story properties with ornamental blue bands just like these in Ladakh are rooted in Tibetan Heritage. They had been noticeably soft-spoken and welcoming, they spoke Spitian (Bhoti bhasha) and Hindi and a few English they usually knew a factor or two concerning the wildlife that surrounds them.
It was mid-January, and comparatively quiet, with just some photographers and wildlife aficionados nestled into primary (however not cheerless) homestays akin to ours, in Kibber Village contained in the Kibber Wildlife Sanctuary. February and March are typically peak viewing months, though nothing would possibly occur. Till it does.
No sooner had we arrived, having already been acclimatised by the drive as much as 12,000 ft, we drove off with Vikram Singh of Wild World India (@wildVikram) who led our group, and Lara Tsering (@lara.tsering), our legendary native enabler, to discover the long-lasting Sudung Gorge, an imposing caramel canyon with darkish, horizontal striations. Peering straight down was unnerving at first, then rewarding. Hidden in its darkish depth had been lovely frozen waterfalls. I might visualise the wildlife taking to the baoli, or stepwell-like descent in the direction of a operating stream on the base. The excellent ambush spot for a nimble-footed, agile feline, many a wildlife clip has been filmed in these rugged surrounds, and for us, it was the place of hope and enchantment.
