Snow Leopard in early March 2025 (Photo by Marcelo Augusto)
We have completed our 11th and 12th Snow Leopard Tours in March 2025 with great success again. Our first tour consisted of four people and we stayed in the Altai Mountain looking for Snow Leopards for 9 days. Upon arrival at the Snow Leopard Camp, we were informed by a local herder that two domestic goats were killed by a Snow Leopard the previous night. We headed to the spot and saw the leopard feeding on the goat carcasses briefly before it got dark. The next morning, we went to the kill, but unfortunately, the Snow Leopard left the kill before dawn. We looked for the leopard around the kill site, but we did not find it. In one of the smaller valleys, one of our guys found another kill near one of the herders' ger. We came back to the kill in the late afternoon, but the leopard did not come back to the kill before dusk. We started early in the next morning and the leopard also left the kill before dawn. We knew that this leopard should be nearby as it had not finished the kill. After a few hours of search, our tour leader Puje found the leopard resting in a shallow cave at an altitude of 2,300 meters. The distance of the leopard from us was 150 meters and we stayed with the leopard for about 4 hours.
Group #01 in March 2025
The second tour started on March 14th, 2025 right after the previous group left. We arrived at the Snow Leopard camp before noon. Our tracker found the Snow Leopard resting in a cave. Unfortunately, the leopard moved away from the spot as it heard some noise made by one of the trackers. Our guys tracked the Snow Leopard heading to the hidden cave on the fresh snow a bit further up in the valley. They confirmed that the leopard went into this cave. We headed to the spot where we could see this leopard from the distance. We put up our spotting scopes and waited for the leopard to come out of the cave when the sun set (usually Snow Leopards start moving at this time of the day). When the sun went down and the shadow hit the cave, the Snow Leopard slowly came out of the cave carefully. We enjoyed watching this leopard sitting, yawning, defecating, and walking around for about 30 minutes before it disappeared. Everyone had a decent view of the leopard despite its distance.
On the second day, we found another Snow Leopard resting in a shallow cave at an altitude of 2,280 meters. The distance of the leopard from us was about 160 meters and we watched it for 3 hours. We decided to go back to the camp as the leopard would not move since It had seen us.
Snow Leopard in mid-March 2025 (Photo by Purevsuren Tsolmonjav)
Group #02 in March 2025
We thank all our guests on these two Snow Leopard tours for their contributions to Snow Leopard Conservation by supporting local communities. We wish you all the best and hope to travel with you again.
