The snow leopard's nickname, the Ghost of the Mountains, is the whole point of the ranking. An index that rewards rarity, remoteness and encounter potential simultaneously is looking for a species that is genuinely hard to reach and genuinely hard to see, but that a visitor still has a real chance of spotting. Ladakh delivers that combination better than almost anywhere: the terrain is high, cold and thinly populated, yet the winter ecology is predictable. Between November and March the bharal or blue sheep and the Asiatic ibex move down to lower valleys where forage is reachable, and the predator follows. Trackers working the Rumbak, Uley and Shang valleys around Hemis National Park can therefore concentrate effort in a small area at a known time of year. The same valleys support Tibetan wolves, red foxes and lynx, so the wider assemblage adds to the draw. Hemis, notified in 1981, is among the largest national parks in India by area, and its scale is part of what keeps the population viable.