Final Day at the Snow Leopard Camp

On our last day at the snow leopard camp, we didn't see much in the morning.  At lunch, we talked about my potential next trip, when I might want to see the eagle hunters in action, the girl archers, and the reindeer hunters.  That trip should most likely be in September or October.  If I want to ride the reindeer, I would still need to lose about 25 more lbs.  Bina also said they ride horses up to the reindeer that time of year, and it is a pretty grueling two-day ride in slippery, muddy, mountainous terrain.  So, I might also want to take some refreshing riding lessons to get my riding muscles back in shape.

After lunch, we headed back out.  While we were driving in a little valley, I spotted an Ibex!  Me!  I spotted it!  And we stopped to take some pictures.

We drove on down to the end of the valley, where our driver started spotting like normal while Bina walked up to join us.  As we went back down the valley, there were many other animals.  My strength is getting better.  Pretty much all of these are taking with the big camera (The Baby) with no support.

My notes say upland buzzard.  I'm pretty proud of having the camera this steady!  Other than cropping, there wasn't much work needed on it.

More ibex.  There was a whole herd.

Elk

Maybe red deer

Bina found wolf tracks, and when we came back through, we stopped for them.  I took some pictures, but between the shadows from people and vehicles, I couldn't pull enough shadows of the print to make it clear what was in the shots.  My journal has this happening after lunch, but I keep thinking this was in the morning.  This is why I journal while traveling.  Days just melt into each other.  Anyway, at some point, the trackers found a snow leopard!  On our last day, we were going to get another snow leopard!  We saw cats on 5 out of the 7 days we were in camp!  These guys with Soaring Expeditions are amazing!  Our first looks were waaay far out.  I looked through the scope to get landmarks for where he was, and by the time I got over to the rocks where I wanted to take my shots, he had gone back into his cave.  So, I got a few shots of the landscape and some distant Mongolian gazelle with a horse in the background.

And Yumchin took a picture of me in my shooting position with my phone.  You can see how heavy my big camera (The Baby) is!  Also, look at that lovely headgear Chrissy knitted for me!  The best headgear I've had!

After a while, we moved closer and continued to wait for him to come out.  He crept out very slowly and timidly.  After we spent some time with him, the guys determined that this was a new male that they hadn't seen before, either in person or on the camera traps.  He was a beauty, though, and once he got out, he just laid down and sunned himself on the ledge.  He did keep his beautiful, blue-grey eyes on us, though.

He did do some rolls to scratch and took a couple of naps once he decided we weren't a threat.

What a way to end the camp portion of the trip!  In total, we saw 6 unique snow leopards (Scarface, Alungoo, the cubs - that we didn't get pix of, and this guy), 5 unique Pallas cats, and many prey animals.  Every mammal that I had on my wish list was seen (except Przewalski's horse, which is a guarantee for later), was seen with several more.  We got nice, safe, close looks at them, with most of the animals being visible to the naked eye.  Top it all off with the fact that I didn't have to contend with the super high altitude in India or significant physical requirements in other locations.  If you're interested in seeing snow leopards in the wild, I highly recommend going with these guys at Soaring Expeditions.  I'm looking forward to how the rest of the trip goes!