Old women walked by, taking their livestock out to graze, avoiding puddles on the ground still wet from all the rain. They wore homespun woolen robes and what looked like smiling top hats perched on their heads. They pointed toward the gorge, chopped at their chests to indicate high water, rolled back their eyes and played dead.

But we didn’t listen. We had a lot invested in this trip. India and Pakistan had just backed off from their latest nuclear weapons showdown, and though tempers were still high, Rinchen predicted there’d be enough of a lull that we could safely drive the seven hours from Leh to Kargil, where we would spend the night, some five miles distant from the Line of Control.

“We might hear a few Pakistani missiles being fired over the line,” he’d said, “Boom! But they won’t be likely to hit us.”

We’d survived the night in Kargil to endure fifteen hours in our rented Indian Sumo (with driver) on a rib-cracking dirt road that touched the toes of glaciers flowing down the flanks of the nearly 15,500-foot Pensi La. At the washout on the other side, our misnomer of an SUV had to be pushed through the freezing river by half a dozen men – our good fortune that drivers stick together out there – and when we finally did reach Zangla, we didn’t want to hear about high water.

None of us had ever been here before, but an unknown trail was nothing new. Still I’m glad I waited until we got home to read what our friend, the late great mountain perambulator Hugh Swift, had to say about the trail ahead: Aside from the Karakoram’s glacial vastness, no place in the Himalayan system is so wide and impenetrable as Zanskar.... This stroll is only for the hardcore hiker with a good local escort.... Milk and cookies will not be served.”

Rinchen had a map and trail description, given him by Phillipe Chabloz, who co-wrote a trekking guide to Zanskar and Ladakh. We knew about the rivers we’d have to wade, and I carried in my pack a pair of two-dollar Indian tennis shoes I’d bought for the purpose. We knew about the five passes we’d have to climb, ranging from 16,500 to nearly 17,000 feet, and I carried in my pack the inhaler my doctor had prescribed for what he diagnosed as asthma, after all these years – induced by exercise! A ridiculous notion said my right brain, the part in denial. Hiking in these mountains is part of my job description. Carry the medicine, said my left brain, bringing to mind the famous field researcher who is said to have insured his legs.

Rinchen wasn’t the only one with ants in his pants. Rodney had wanted to visit Zanskar for years. After two decades spent working on the big picture of snow leopard conservation, a light bulb had gone on in his head: the best way to save the greatest number of wild snow leopards in the shortest time was to help the villagers make their livestock pens predator-proof. The idea wasn’t original, just the conviction to act on it. British biologist David Mallon had made a series of wildlife surveys of Zanskar and Ladakh in the 1980s and had recommended the predator-proofing of livestock pens. If a snow leopard can’t get in in the first place, it can’t continue to live up to its reputation for breaking-and-entering, killing or wounding every sheep and goat within. We’ve heard of one hundred and seven animals being killed in a single attack. In the face of such a disaster it’s no wonder that even in these predominantly Buddhist communities, retaliation is acceptable. They don’t like to do it, but herding livestock is their lifeline. They will stone a cat to death if they catch it in the pen, or will poison the carcass of an animal killed on the open range and hope the perpetrator returns. Seven snow leopards that we know about have been killed around Shade in the last few years. But while we formed the Snow Leopard Conservancy to focus on the root causes of livestock depredation, we’ve built the organization on the commitments of our in-country staff, who work directly with the villagers who must live with the cats. Ultimately it’s these local citizens who will make the real difference in protecting snow leopards.

Rodney and I went ahead while the others finished packing the mules. Dorjay, who serves as a community mobilizer, keeping his village’s corral program on track when he isn’t wearing his chef’s hat, had responded quickly to the antibiotic and regained his enthusiasm for the journey – and the rest of us had regained our enthusiasm for his momos, the Ladakhi version of pot stickers. We walked upstream for an hour, accompanied by a robin-sized orange hoopoe pecking in the sand in time to its Latin name Upupa epops, and fanning out its black-and-white-striped crest like an oversized Mohawk hairdo. Hoopoes are a sign of good luck. We came to the first crossing and waded it easily.

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