Snow Leopard: Stories from the Roof of the World

Preface

— xiii — Preface The idea for Snow Leopard: Stories from the Roof of the World came from reading Marc Bekoff and Clara Blessley Lowe’s Listening to Cougar, an anthology of personal communion with the big cat of the western United States. The inspiration for this book came from my internal voice calling me to tithe in return for a spirit enriched by sharing time and space with the cougar’s cousin in central Asia. Unlike the cougar, very little has been written about this beautiful and mystical cat, especially at an emotional, personal level. The world’s coolest cat is in deep trouble, its world under siege. To survive it needs empathy, it must roar, awakening an unknowing world. But this big cat has no roar—the only big cat that doesn’t. This unique anthology speaks out on behalf of the cat with no roar. It attempts to give a voice to the snow leopard, a voice that transcends species, a voice echoed by those who know it best: the rare few who have given a portion of their lives to help preserve this beautiful cat. I’ve carefully selected contributors who truly know the snow leopard, having paid the price of priceless time in the world’s P r e f a c e — xiv — mightiest mountains. Most of them are friends and colleagues I’ve traveled with, worked with. These good and hardy people share a common passion for protecting the snow leopard and its fragile world. I’ve shared their experiences, heard their stories; I know they will inform, inspire, and imbue readers through heartfelt stories of adventure, danger, and discovery. Snow Leopard: Stories from the Roof of the World brings these journeys to life, shared in every detail by a breed of scientist-peregrine as rare and tough as the cat they study. There is an art to quests of science and spirit. Raw experience without perspective and inner reflection is empty of meaning and does little to shape the core of who we are. In this sense, the nature and depth of adventure are attenuated through prisms of individual self: what’s adventure to one person may bore another, and vice versa. Central Asia possesses a timeless magnetism for the adventuresome sprit. Long before I set foot in the great mountain ranges the snow leopard knows as home, a league of extraordinary people marched the river trails and crossed the high passes, lifting the veil of the unknown. These early travelers shared a common pathology of spirit, shamelessly addicted to high remote places, seeking kinship among strange faces, and finding solace in endless horizons. They veiled their passion beneath quests of religion, trade, health, conquest, science. Earlier scientists and adventurers wrote eloquently of their exploits. These seminal artists of words spawned an entirely new genre of evocative prose, engrossing the armchair traveler with voyeur glimpses of exotic lands heretofore known only as terra incognita. Marco Polo, Ibn Batutta, Hsuan Tsang, and Sven Hedin are but a few who found snow leopard country alluring, a place of greatness: Great things are done when men and mountains meet; This is not done by jostling in the street. —WiLLiAm BLAKE, GNOmiC vERSES Blake would have us believe such discovery of place and spirit happened only among men, but, in fact, many astonishing P r e f a c e — xv — women were also drawn to the adventurous life, rebuking the easy path of “jostling in the street.” Overcoming repressive restraints of sex and Victorian decorum, which men did not have to deal with, these amazing ladies possessed a deep well of grit equal to that of any man, racking up feats of discovery hardly believable if their exploits were not so well documented. Further, they did so throughout their lives: Fanny Bullock Workman was a recordsetting mountaineer at fifty-three, Alexandra David-Neel at fiftysix walked 2,000 miles across the Tibetan Plateau to reach Lhasa, and Isabella Bird in her seventieth year capped an illustrious life of adventure with a 1,000-mile horseback trip through Morocco. Bird climbed Longs Peak in Colorado and traveled around central Asia well over a century before me. I’m very proud that three equally intrepid women have stories in this book, continuing a legacy that proclaims the world of the snow leopard forever genderless. With all great adventures there are risks, hardships, and unexpected bends in the...