KarmaQuest Ecotourism and Adventure Travel is proud to collaborate with the Snow Leopard Conservancy on this special winter snow leopard tracking trip to Ladakh, India.

The snow leopard’s winter mating season offers the best chance of seeing this elusive creature in the wild. Trip members will join the SLC-India Trust staff on their watch for the snow leopard as it descends from the snowy mountaintops in search of food or a mate.

Wintertime Quest clients have seen a snow leopard on every trip since we began in 2005!

Imagine hiking through the Himalaya in the tracks of a wild snow leopard, knowing that your being there will help save the snow leopard from retaliatory killing and will help local families send their children to better schools. Imagine staying in a traditional family-run “Himalayan Homestay,” riding camels at 10,000 ft and attending a lively Buddhist ritual dance festival. All of this is possible on the Summertime Quest for the Snow Leopard.

Informed by the Snow Leopard Conservancy’s decades of conservation action in Ladakh, you’ll explore sites within Hemis National Park that are regularly visited by the elusive cats that leave their “sign” (such as tracks, scent, and other markers). Sightings of blue sheep and urial, two of the snow leopard’s prey species, are virtually guaranteed. If you’re very lucky you will see a snow leopard too, although they normally descend from the ridge-tops only after the first snows.

This ten-day Jomolhari Base Camp/Bhonte La loop trek set against stunning Himalayan scenery coincides with the annual Jomolhari Mountain Festival held in the best snow leopard habitat in Bhutan. If you are going to see a snow leopard in Bhutan, it is likely to be here.