© Surya Ramachandran The Elusive Snow Leopard
In 1971, his photos appeared in the pages of National Geographic, giving the world its first opportunity to view this fabled being in its natural habitat. One of those Westerners was Schaller, who was also the first to capture a snow leopard on film. In fact, when Matthiessen embarked on his expedition, only two Westerners had reported seeing a snow leopard over the previous 25 years. Local residents call them the “gray ghost” or the “ghost of the mountains,” because they’re so rarely seen. For a long period, so little was known about these shy and solitary creatures that inhabit earth’s uppermost reaches that they’ve since taken on an almost mythical status. It’s no secret that big cats stir imaginations, from the majestic lions of Kenya’s Maasai Mara to the jaguar, a large and spotted feline that holds court over South America’s Amazon jungle. This strenuous two-month expedition resulted in one of Matthiessen’s best known and award-winning books, The Snow Leopard, a work that still enlightens and inspires readers today. That is, a quest coupled with the hope of glimpsing one of the region’s most elusive animals: the snow leopard.
While Schaller was there to study the mating habits of the bharal, or Himalayan blue sheep, Matthieseen was on a quest of spiritual enlightenment. In the autumn of 1973, wilderness writer and naturalist Peter Matthiessen joined preeminent field biologist George Schaller high in Nepal’s Himalayan Mountains, on a journey that would soon become legendary.
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