From the prologue:IN LATE sEPTEMBER of 1973, I set out with GS on a journey to theCrystal Mountain, walking west under Annapurna and north along theKali Gandaki River, then west and north again, around the Dhaulagiripeaks and across the Kanjiroba, two hundred and fifty miles or moreto the Land of Dolpo, on the Tibetan Plateau.GS is the zoologist George Schaller. I knew him first in 1969, inthe Serengeti Plain of East Africa, where he was working on hiscelebrated study of the lion.u· When I saw him next, in New York Cityin the spring of 1972, he had started a survey of wild sheep and goatsand their near relatives the goat-antelopes. He wondered if I mightlike to join him the following year on an expedition to northwestNepal, near the frontier of Tibet, to study the bharal, or Himalayanblue sheep; it was his feeling, which he meant to confirm, that thisstrange "sheep" of remote ranges was actually less sheep than goat, andperhaps quite close to the archetypal ancestor of both. We would goin the autumn to observe the animals in rut, since the eating and sleepingthat occupied them throughout the remainder of the year gave almostno clue to evolution and comparative behavior. Near Shey Gompa,"Crystal Monastery," where the Buddhist lama had forbidden people tomolest them, the bharal were said to be numerous and easily observed.And where bharal were numerous, there was bound to appear thatrarest and most beautiful of the great cats, the snow leopard. GS knewof only two Westerners-he was one-who had laid eyes on theHimalayan snow leopard in the past twenty-five years; the hope ofglimpsing this near-mythic beast in the snow mountains was reasonenough for the entire journey.