Tracking the Snow Leopard

We will meet in Chengdu and travel to Yushu with our tour leader, or meet at Yushu Airport.

Ancient Yushu is one of the cradles of Tibetan culture. It is home to the legend of the Tibetan hero King Gesar; ancient monasteries, fluttering prayer flags, devout prayers before mani stones, and the mysterious sky burial sites—the most authentic Tibetan culture has been preserved in Yushu. As a key stop on the ancient Silk Road, Yushu connects China, India and Nepal, leaving behind a rich cultural heritage; amongst this, the Temple of Princess Wencheng stands as a testament to the cultural exchange between the Han and Tibetan peoples.

We arrive in the evening at Xianggu Monastery, a Tibetan Buddhist monastery with a history spanning over 700 years. Inside the halls, you can listen to the monks’ evening prayers; the monks here maintain the tradition of feeding Tibetan brown bears, and we will also encounter wild Tibetan brown bears here—the largest carnivores on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

We will stay at an authentic Tibetan-style hotel in Yushu, which resembles a Tibetan museum housing a vast collection of artworks.

We set off for Shiqu at dawn, passing through Xinzhai in Yushu—home to the Jianamani Stone Scripture City, which is listed in the Guinness World Records. It comprises 3.5 billion stones inscribed with sutras, mantras and texts, stacked one by one over a period of more than 300 years; visitors standing there are awestruck by the power of faith.

Shiqu is situated in the south-east of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, at the northern end of the Hengduan Mountains, and is one of the best places to spot snow leopards. Sixty per cent of the world’s suitable snow leopard habitat is found in China, and the Hengduan Mountains rank second among the world’s seven snow leopard habitat conservation areas. The snow leopard is the apex predator in this region, which is also home to the Tibetan Brown Bear,Lynx, White-lipped Deer, Blue Sheep, , Tibetan Antelope, Kiang、Tibetan Gazelle、Himalayan Marmot, Leopard and Bearded Vulure , making it a veritable gathering place for the plateau’s wildlife.

Over the next few days, to maximise your chances of spotting snow leopards, we will rely on a professional snow leopard observation team comprising local Tibetan herder guides and our naturalist expedition leaders to guide you in tracking the snow leopards. By sharing information with the local community and maintaining radio contact to monitor their movements, we aim to maximise your chances of observing these elusive creatures. 

Oxygen is thin in the high-altitude regions, and a lack of sleep at night can exacerbate altitude sickness. We provide a diffusion-type oxygen generator to disperse oxygen throughout the room, alleviating the discomfort caused by altitude sickness.

Once we have finished observing the snow leopards in Shiqu, we will return to Yushu. If time permits, we can visit Yushu’s Jiegu Monastery and the Yushu Tibetan Products Market—the best places to learn about Tibetan culture.

We will transfer you to Yushu Airport or Batang Airport, where your adventure on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau will come to an end—or perhaps mark the start of your next journey!