Trip Reports

Saribung and Upper Mustang 2025

At 6000m on Saribung
Trip Report

Written by Leader Ed Chard, November 2025

Expeditions often have a stand out moment. It could be when you reach a summit, take the last few steps to a remote pass or gaze at the night sky on a cold, crisp, windless night.

On our Saribung and Upper Mustang trip; I had just such a moment, sat in a mess tent drinking milk tea and eating coconut biscuits. The company was great, the conversation animated and the tea hot.

Lovely as the situation was it was the view from the open tent doorway to the hill side some 500m away that caught my eye.

We were 12 days into our trip having trekked through Upper Mustang and the Ancient Kingdom of Lo. We’d had a day in the walled city of Lo Manthang and had spent time with Monks and local people along the way. The wildlife had been fantastic, Golden Eagles, Bearded Vultures and Blue Sheep (Thar) had all made an appearance.

Our journey had taken us over 5000m passes and deep into Northern Nepal right up to the Tibetan border, we were so close that our GPS and smart watches kept jumping time zones to Lhasa.

So it was that this particular afternoon, after 6 hours of high altitude trekking we were looking forward to dinner and good rest. Something was moving around on the hillside. My first thought was a Marmot, essentially a furry pillow case with a head, around 60cm long and common in the mountains – but this was bigger; much bigger and had a tail – a big tail.

I went through the ‘it can’t be – it’s so close’ internal conversation of disbelieve.  The creature ducked behind a rock and was gone but suddenly appeared again continuing its journey down the hillside toward three pack horses that had just been set free after a day of work.

It came to rest, flicked its tail and looked straight at us. I was looking straight into the face of a large female Snow Leopard.

What followed was a frantic ‘’where is it, which rock, up a bit no to the left’ type of conversation within the group. Cameras were deployed and the Leopard stayed very still (in my mind licking her lips and sizing up which horse looked the slowest). She stayed there for a few minutes before melting into the background and completely disappearing. We sat for several minutes stunned by what we’d seen.

The horseman walked past the tent soon after and said, did you see you Snow Leopard? Clearly a regular occurrence if you spend you time in these high mountain passes.

Our experience, or moment, had nothing to do with climbing a mountain; or even trekking in a remote corner of Nepal but it’s the sort of experience that we’ll remember for a lifetime. Thank you Leopard, I know you didn’t eat a horse but I hope you found something for dinner. See you next time.

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