blood-origins-field-stories-snow

SNOW

As Snow peeled thick slices of bacon from the packet and laid them on the gas-powered griddle, his blue eyes drifted out the window of the mountain hut. He lifted his spatula and pointed toward a jagged ridge in the distance. “See that ridge? I killed a bull tahr up there once,” he said in a slow, gravelly New Zealand drawl. His gaze lingered on the ridge, lost in memory, before swinging back to us with a crooked smirk and a glimmer in his eye. “Maybe we’ll have the same luck.”

Snow comes from generations of hunters who made New Zealand their home long ago. Hunting isn’t just what he does—it’s who he is. When I asked if he’d do it all again, his answer was as steady as the mountains around us. “Yeah… probably would,” he said with a knowing smile.In these towering peaks, which look like something out of Middle Earth, Snow has spent decades chasing the elusive Himalayan tahr—a non-native species introduced to New Zealand over a century ago. To Snow, the tahr is more than an animal; it’s a piece of his identity, woven into his blood and etched into the lines of his weathered face….