India July - August 2011, Hemis National Park

Once in Leh we set out to do a multiple day trek into Hemis National Park to enjoy the vastness of the Ladakhi area. We decided to do a trek through the Rumbak area. This is a four to five day trek, but managed to this trek in three days although this required a considerable amount effort. At first we wanted to do the eight days Marka Valley Trek, but we did not have enough time to do this. We skipped the first day of the trek, by taking a taxi into the mountains, for the first day of trekking goes from Leh to the first village inside the national park and during that first day the area that you pass through is rather dull and not very interesting birding wise. The same goes for the way back to Leh at the end of the trek. Once you exit the National Park, the scenery is still stunning, but the trekking is not as nice, so we hitched a ride back to Leh.

During the three days of hiking we enjoyed a lot of good birds and mammals as well as absolutely breathtaking scenery and amiable Ladakhi locals. Birds observed during those days in the Hemis area included Himalayan Snowcock, Himalayan Griffon,Golden Eagle, Lammergeier, Wallcreeper, Chukar, Robin Accentor, Brown Accentor, Alpine Accentor, Asian House Martin, Grey-backed Shrike, Tickells Leaf Warbler, Plain Mountain Finch and Streaked Rosefinch. During second and last day of the trek we also passed through some areas that looked pretty good for Himalayan Rubythroat and White-browed Tit-warbler, but we had no succes in finding these superb birds.

Plain Mountain Finch (Leucosticte nemoricola)

Robin Accentor (Prunella rubeculoides)

Female Wallcreeper (Tichodroma muraria)

Male Streaked Rosefinch (Carpodacus rubicilloides)

Part of a group of Himalayan Snowcocks (Tetraogallus himalayensis)

Brown Accentor (Prunella fulvescens)

Tickell´s Leaf Warbler (Phylloscopus affinis) of the newly described perflavus subspecies

Mammals observed here included real (!) Wild Yaks, Blue Sheep, Himalayan Marmot and Ladakh Pika. This is also the best place in the world to look for Snow Leopards and even BirdQuest has started to organise tours to this area to see this incredible creature. We looked for three days for this species, but according to the locals the Snow Leopards can only be found above 5.000 MASL during the Arctic Summer, so the best time to go would be in September or October, when the mountain peaks are starting to become colder. Even though, during our second night in the area we heard a large cat attacking cows in a local village at night. So it must have been either a Snow Leopard or a Lynx, Lynxes are apparently much rarer in this area..

Blue Sheep (Pseudois nayaur)

Himalayan Marmot (Marmota himalayana)

This area is absolutely one of my favorite places on earth. It is wild, remote, full of life if you know where to look, barely populated and the people that do live here are incredibly nice. So when visiting the Ladakhi area a trek through the Hemis national park should be considered as a must!

Trekking in Hemis is not always easy, but the scenery never disappoints!