The Ghost of the Mountains: Unraveling the Secrets of the Snow Leopard by Suryawanshi, Kulbhushansingh

"Thrilling and intrepid. A beautiful tale of dramatic, wild landscapes and the entangled lives of snow leopards, their prey, and the humans who share their terrain." --Andrea Wulf, bestselling author of The Invention of Nature

"By turns beautiful, terrible, and encouraging." --Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sixth Extinction

The vivid account of a leading conservationist's efforts to find, study, and protect snow leopards

Snow leopards have a special grip on the human imagination, a symbol of the mysteries that still exist on our planet. These elusive predators live solitary lives in the highest reaches of the Himalaya, moving along rock faces like smoke. They are also the flagship species of Himalayan conservation, key to preserving this austere, delicate ecosystem.

Kulbhushansingh Suryawanshi is one of the world's leading snow leopard scientists. In The Ghost of the Mountains, he offers an evocative and personal account of his decades of work in this field, from his exhilarating adventures on the high peaks to his efforts to build a community-based, collaborative model for protecting the snow leopards and their remaining habitat. That habitat is increasingly under threat as encroaching development, ongoing armed conflict, and rapidly intensifying climate change transform this region.

Thrilling, illuminating, and filled with transportive storytelling, The Ghost of the Mountains reveals the challenges facing a beautiful, fragile ecosystem in the midst of a major transition. As Suryawanshi describes his crucial work as a conservationist in a rapidly changing world, he also conveys an infectious sense of wonder. For him, every snow leopard encounter is still a transcendent experience, offering a renewed sense of meaning and purpose.

Author: Kulbhushansingh Suryawanshi
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Published: 08/25/2026
Pages: 336
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.08lbs
Size: 9.29h x 6.27w x 1.16d
ISBN: 9798217043736

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 05/18/2026
Kirkus Reviews 06/01/2026
Booklist 06/01/2026
Shelf Awareness 01/01/0001

About the Author
Kulbhushansingh (Kullu) Suryawanshi is an ecologist and conservationist who has spent almost two decades studying snow leopards in the wild. He is a Fellow of the British Ecological Society, the director of the India program of the Snow Leopard Trust, and a scientist with the Nature Conservation Foundation. He is a CIFAR fellow and National Geographic Explorer and was a fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin. He lives in Bangalore, India, with his wife and daughter.