
Oman - Desert Fortress
Season 1 Episode 10 | 50m 28sVideo has Closed Captions
Visit Oman’s Dhofar Mountains, where Steve Backshall encounters one of the rarest animals.
Visit the remote and impenetrable Dhofar Mountains in Oman, where Steve Backshall hopes to become the first to climb unexplored cliffs. Along the way, he encounters one of the rarest animals on Earth.
Problems with Closed Captions? Closed Captioning Feedback
Problems with Closed Captions? Closed Captioning Feedback

Oman - Desert Fortress
Season 1 Episode 10 | 50m 28sVideo has Closed Captions
Visit the remote and impenetrable Dhofar Mountains in Oman, where Steve Backshall hopes to become the first to climb unexplored cliffs. Along the way, he encounters one of the rarest animals on Earth.
Problems with Closed Captions? Closed Captioning Feedback
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Meet Steve Backshall
Steve Backshall takes PBS behind his adventures, explains how the expeditions are chosen, and explores our role in protecting these magnificent locations.Providing Support for PBS.org
Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorshipThere are always nerves when you get back on the rock for the first time.
[puffs and inhales] -[Aldo] Good luck, mate.
-Thank you very much, old bean.
I'm Steve Backshall, a naturalist and explorer.
It's all about picking the right handholds and footholds.
And when that's impossible, you just have to hope.
I've come to Southern Oman to venture into unexplored pockets of its vast, rocky desert... hoping to find places people have never been before.
[camels grumbling] Even though you are taking yourself into a vertical world, you're taking yourself into a place where there could be lots and lots of little, hidden secrets.
I want to find the last strongholds of some of the world's rarest wildlife.
What's that there?
God, look at those prints there!
They're so clear.
We have no idea what we'll discover.
Look at that!
I think they're bones.
You are not going to believe this place.
You are not going to believe it.
The overpowering urge to explore the remotest corners of our planet is in our nature.
This is about the most dramatic piece of desert I've ever seen.
The driving is pretty bumpy.
It's a little bit like driving on the surface of the moon.
Good start to an expedition.
We're in the Dhofar desert in Southern Oman, where scorched coastal plains thrust up into the Jabal Samhan cliffs.
We're getting closer.
This is Dhofar's highest mountain range.
And it has these insane cliff faces.
They're as high as the Empire State building.
And there has never been a recorded ascent.
We are going to climb it, to track down one of the rarest big cats on Earth... the Arabian leopard.
There are fewer than 200 left in the world.
For centuries, they've roamed this desert.
But today, they're almost extinct.
This cliff face could be one of their last hiding places.
Oman lies at the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula.
Today, it has one of the fastest growing populations on the planet.
And as towns expand, wildlife is being forced to retreat.
The rugged landscape of the south has inaccessible sanctuaries, where Arabia's rarest animals still cling on.
The desert here in Oman is scorched.
It's parched.
It feels like it's sucking the moisture out of your body.
Survival is a battle for scarce resources.
People and livestock use up what little there is.
And because of that you don't see much in the way of wildlife.
But there are some places that are natural havens.
And there, everything's different.
This expedition will take us from desert oases to towering peaks in search of places where nature finds a way.
Our starting point is Tawi Atayr, a giant sinkhole, which offers shade and, more importantly, the only water for many miles.
To help me, I've assembled the dream team.
Hazel Findlay is one of the world's best big-wall climbers.
She's scaled some of the most dangerous rockfaces on Earth, but this is new territory.
-How are you feeling?
-Feel good, yeah.
I'm excited.
First sinkhole.
Aldo Kane is our rope safety specialist.
Yeah, roger that.
Just, uh, Hazel's connecting now.
That's it.
I'll have to undo that one.
And with 40 years of adventure climbing, John Arran has tackled every danger a rockface can throw at you.
I've never done an abseil that's quite this long.
-How long is this, do you know?
-This is about 200 metres.
So I'm a little bit wary about being too blasé about it.
[Steve] Here goes nothing.
It's like dropping down the throat of some... enormous desert monster.
[Hazel] You're like Lara Croft.
[John] That is a long, long way.
[Hazel] Ooh!
[birds twittering] [Steve] As dramatic as this place is, it's the sandscape that really hits you.
It's just reverberating with birdsong.
[birds twittering] Those are Tristram's grackles.
[birds twittering] And overhead is Bonelli's eagle.
[birds twittering, eagle cries] This place is alive!
We've dropped into an isolated world.
[birds twittering] We are such clichés.
I'm looking around going, "Look at all the pretty birds."
Hazel's climbing already.
-[he laughs] -[Hazel] Hiya.
At its base is the secret to life here.
-[Hazel] I see fish.
-Do you?
No way.
Seriously?
Yeah, there.
I can see it.
[Steve] Oh yeah, I see it.
That species of fish will have been dropped in here hundreds of thousands of years ago, maybe as an egg by a bird and has evolved into a totally different species that only lives here.
[Hazel] So that fish lives nowhere else on this planet?
-[Steve] Yeah.
-[Hazel] That's so crazy.
This place has everything an animal could need - water, food and shelter, all out of reach.
The reason we've come here to Oman is this.
The human population here is growing faster than just about anywhere else on the planet.
And as the population grows, the spaces for wild animals are becoming rarer and rarer.
But down here, nobody ever comes.
And because of that it's remained as a haven.
No people, lots and lots of wildlife.
Increasingly, Oman's wild animals are being pushed into these isolated pockets.
The Arabian leopard once freely roamed the entire south.
But now people and their livestock are encroaching and the leopard's territory is shrinking.
The sheer cliff face of this 70 kilometre-long escarpment could be their last remaining sanctuary.
To find out, we need to climb it.
That is one imposing bit of rock.
Climbing it will be tough for us, but for an agile animal like a leopard, these narrow ledges, precarious pathways and caverns... could be an ideal hideaway.
It just looks like a fortress.
We'll need help, so we're teaming up with someone who's dedicated his entire life to tracking down these elusive cats.
-Khalid!
Salam alaykum.
-Salam.
Khalid Al Hikmani is a wildlife expert responsible for protecting the leopards in this area.
Well, we'll head to this point and then we follow the trail up.
And then we will continue to the mountains, where is the cloud now.
Monitoring these leopards is key to Khalid's research.
He already knows they use the foothills here.
By climbing, we want to help him discover if they're using the cliff face itself.
-Right!
Get to it, shall we?
-Cool.
We estimate the climb will take us three days, so we are bringing enough kit and supplies to cover all eventualities.
This is as far as the 4x4's will take us.
From here on in, we're on foot and using the camels.
Aldo will use a rope-and-pulley system to haul up the gear we need to live on the wall.
We'll free climb and he'll follow behind.
You've got climbing expedition kit.
Rigging kit and all the camera kit.
And food and water.
For three days on the cliff, we'll need over 100 litres of water.
Everyone will need food and water for themselves for, say, 24 hours.
To survive in this heat, we'll all need five litres per day.
All right!
Ready to go.
To reach the base, it's a four-kilometre trek over scorched foothills, where we'll gain 900 metres in altitude.
We're here at the driest time of year.
Temperatures can soar and there's no shade.
I am struggling!
It's pretty hot.
Not looking forward to being up there on the rock with this kind of heat, with absolutely no escape from it.
The crushing heat is making it hard work for cameraman Keith Partridge.
You set up filming everybody coming past you and then, uh, pack everything up and try and catch them up and overtake them.
[Steve] Look at that.
That is the dropping of a predator, but you can see little remnants of its prey inside of it.
Lots of hair, vertebrae from smaller animals.
Pretty certain that that's leopard, Arabian leopard.
Critically endangered.
And to see one here in these mountains would be mind-blowing.
It would be one of the greatest wildlife experiences I've ever had.
Amazing.
Right on the trail in front of me.
Leopards are incredibly shy.
Spotting them is almost impossible, so Khalid uses remote cameras to monitor their movements.
He's already set some up for us and is going ahead to check them.
We set up the camera a month ago.
I hope we can get something.
Khalid's placed the cameras on pathways the leopards could be using, at the top and bottom of the cliff.
They're designed to trigger day or night if any animals pass by.
Retrieving the images, Khalid is joined by his friend, wildlife cameraman Miguel Willis.
Quite hopeful that there might be something on them, cos as we were approaching them, we've seen quite a few scats and scrapings on the trail.
They've been triggered.
A Blanford's fox.
Just like leopards, these hunters can survive on little water.
Honey badgers.
Seeing three together is really unusual.
They compete for food, so there must be plenty of it around.
Arabian partridge.
They nest on the ground.
An easy meal for a leopard.
With so much prey here, there's every chance that leopards are close by.
Even though you are taking yourself into a vertical world, you are taking yourself into a place where there could be lots and lots of little, hidden secrets.
Today, we start our climb.
The first ascent of this formidable rockface.
Big-wall climbers John and Hazel check out our route options.
[Steve] First impression, Hazel?
[Hazel] First impression is that it's a lot steeper and more intimidating than it looked from a distance, for sure.
That just looks crazy, that top wall.
[John] I just think it's going to be steep and sustained.
I mean, looking at it close, it's very exciting from a climber's perspective, and for John and Hazel, who do this for a living, you know, this is gold dust.
But for me looking at that, it puts my heart in my boots.
We're heading 400 metres straight up the rockface.
It should take three days to climb.
John, Hazel and I plan to work our way up in pitches of roughly 40 metres.
Today's goal is to reach a ledge 100 metres up and set up our cliff camp.
-You there?
-[radio beeps] -Yep, seems to be working.
-Good.
While we look for evidence of leopards on the cliff face, Khalid's on a mission to collect his remote cameras from the summit.
It'll take Khalid two days of hiking and off-roading to collect them all.
We'll meet him at the top to see if the cameras have been triggered.
Do you want to fill that one up?
John and Hazel will take it in turns to lead each pitch.
Helmet's on.
No moving while you're filming if you can avoid it.
While we climb, Aldo is ground control.
He'll watch out for everyone's safety down below.
He'll only start hauling the kit when we've dropped our ropes from the cliff camp.
Hazel's first.
[Steve] Do you have a mantra?
Do you have anything that you do before you climb?
[Hazel] That when you step onto the rock it really has to be like you're in.
You know, you're climbing, that's what you're focused on, and you let go of everything else.
[Steve] Very best of luck.
So she's finding the way as she goes.
Placing bits of gear into the rockface to secure her.
Clipping her rope into anchor points should hold her.
I've got the end of her rope, but if she falls, she could still drop ten metres.
It's all about just figuring out the puzzle of which way the rock is most likely to break.
Just make sure no one's underneath, hey.
Every single metre of this is exploration.
You've got to be on your guard every single second in this environment.
-[Hazel] Whoa!
-[Steve] What was that, Hazel?
[Hazel] Handhold just broke.
The rock's basically made of cheese!
Like there's going to be continuous rock coming down.
Okay, we can all keep out of the fall zone.
Don't worry.
The rock is far more fragile than we'd imagined.
Even, like one this size, even with a helmet on, hits you on your shoulder or head, that'd certainly kill you, from that height that she's at.
Rock!
Rock, rock!
[rock crashes] Gee!
I saw that happening in slow motion.
Saw John standing exactly where that rock was about to hit.
[Hazel] Okay then, Steve!
Hazel's completed the first pitch.
Now it's John's turn.
[John] Climbing.
It's going to be a lot of fun!
John's in his element.
But for me, this is far more daunting.
Eleven years ago I had a bad climbing accident, breaking my ankle and my back.
Getting on to something like this which is super-committing is, uh, yeah, proper frightening.
[Hazel] Just tell him to go careful on the start, hey.
Ready as I'll ever be.
The number-one issue when you are nervous is hanging on too hard and using up too much energy when you don't need to.
And that is exactly what I'm doing already, I can feel myself doing it.
[sighs] Big rock coming down!
-Everyone okay?
-Yeah.
All good.
I'm getting towards the top of this particular pitch.
[John] Just be very careful on this top bit.
The surface crumbles away.
[Hazel] Welcome to cheese ledge.
Cheese ledge.
Whoosh!
It's a huge relief to reach Hazel and John.
Oh, well done!
The first ever lead in Jabal Samhan, how about that?
The first 40 metres is under our belts but the next pitch is intimidating.
We're faced with a narrow crack in the rock, known as a chimney.
We'll need to squeeze our way up through this to reach the ledge where we'll camp.
John's taking the lead.
-What do you think, John?
-I think it looks adventurous.
I think it looks hard and it might be loose.
I'm learning now to decipher your language.
-[John laughs] -If you say it's hard, then it means that I will never in a million lifetimes be able to achieve it.
[John laughs] [Hazel] Yeah, just go steady.
[Steve] Don't fall off now, though, John.
[John] That's going to be a lot of fun!
All a bit more adventurous than we had anticipated.
[Steve] Always is, John, whenever I do anything with you.
[John] Par for the course!
John is light, flexible and strong-- the perfect physique for climbing.
But I'm 30 kilos heavier.
[John on radio] Hey, guys, I've made it to the ledge.
So what do you think?
Advance base camp on the ledge?
Uh, it would make a great bivvy up here, yeah.
Nice!
You are speaking my language, John.
John rigs ropes for our cameraman Keith to ascend.
I would also have your descender on maybe, just so that you can, like, if stuff starts coming down, you can then bail out.
-[Aldo] He's on the ropes.
-[Steve] Okay.
[Hazel] Okay, John, Steve's climbing.
With Keith in position to film, it's my turn to take on the chimney.
[Steve panting] That is... just ridiculous.
[Hazel] Nice!
Uhh!
Rock!
-Rock!
-Rock!
[rocks clatter] Oooh!
This is genuinely frightening stuff.
Let's hope it gets better.
Uh!
Ooh!
That's a biggie, that's a biggie!
Don't go, don't move!
[he breathes heavily] John!
Mate, I think this is beyond me.
[John] But it's quite a lot easier after that first bit.
[Hazel on radio] Can you reach behind you with your right hand and push off that one wall?
[John] Good effort, Steve.
Doing really well.
It's all about picking the right handholds and footholds.
So those holds have got to be good.
A good one will hold you and your body weight and a bad one won't.
And sometimes you even have to compromise.
Oh!
Ooh!
[puffs] Scared.
Dry mouth.
[John] Looking good, Steve.
Oh!
Yes!
You absolute beauty.
Come on!
Get in!
That's the hardest thing I've done in a long time.
[Keith] That was quite dramatic down there, wasn't it?
When that hole pinged off on your foot, I thought you were out of there.
You did well to hang it.
[Steve] So this is going to be home for a little while.
I've made it.
But there's not much light left, so I'm keen to get exploring.
Wow!
Whoa!
Big spicy drop-off.
This rockface has weathered over thousands of years, creating ledges and hollows.
There's a whacking great big cave in here!
This is absolutely incredible.
I wasn't expecting anything like this.
What's that there?
Look at this.
I think we've found something pretty incredible.
I think these could be the bones of a whale.
This is unbelievable.
The sea is a short distance from the mouth of this cave.
And millions of years ago, this entire escarpment was a seabed.
It's limestone, which is made from fossilised remains of ancient creatures.
These strange formations could be the bones of a large marine animal.
Or fossilised burrow systems of primitive shellfish.
This eventually became a fossil and then these mountains were lifted up to this high above sea level where we are right now.
It's full of surprises, isn't it, this mountain?
Full of surprises.
100 metres beneath me, Aldo's shuttling up our supplies.
Some sleeping kit.
He's working alongside two others - Justin Halls and cameraman Miguel.
Once Aldo's hoisted the kit, he'll join us at the cliff camp.
Hauling!
[Aldo] Everything that you need for life support needs to be hauled up the wall.
This is the first load of water, so we've got three of these to go up.
Take them when ready, over.
[Keith] Okay.
Okay, stop there.
Okay.
After a day of climbing and hauling, the seven of us are reunited.
Temperatures here plummet after sunset, so we're glad of our sleeping bags and supplies of hot food.
[Steve] Well, what a thoroughly amazing day.
Dawn brings an unexpected turn of events.
A thick fog has rolled in from the Arabian Sea.
[Steve] What do you think?
[Hazel] You are literally rolling the dice at every pitch.
So from here on in, we're kind of climbing blind.
If John and Hazel fail to find a route up in the mist, we may have to abort the climb.
Obviously, we can't see anything above us or off to either side.
There's no one down below who'd be able to see through this fog to give us any directions, so it's a case of just kind of ferreting forward and seeing what happens.
[Hazel] Just trying to concentrate.
These guys are the best in the business, but even they need total focus to pull this off.
[Hazel] Yeah, it's actually quite slippy rock.
Disappearing into the mist.
[Steve] What do you see, Hazel?
[Hazel] This could be our way upwards.
[John] Okay, climbing!
We're split up in a white-out.
I need to keep tabs on everyone.
[Aldo] We're about four bags out of 11 in.
Aldo and the support team are hauling up the remaining supplies from the base.
Haul, haul, haul.
[yawns] It's an absolutely massive enterprise, getting us up this cliff face.
Aldo's slogging his guts out down there, going up and down these ropes, and every time he does, there's a risk of knocking something big off.
[Aldo] We are hauling a lot of kit, hundreds of kilos.
The anchors or the rock could fail.
And with that amount of weight on it, if someone's under it, then they are going to die.
While John and Hazel attempt to reach the halfway ledge, I can focus on exploring.
Cliff camp is on a narrow terrace which runs for 200 metres before hitting a vertical drop off.
That's as far as I can safely go without ropes.
You've always got to remember that there is a massive drop-off just to that side, so I'm going easy, but... you can see... this trail here.
Animals are coming in from the side, making their way around on the teeniest, tiniest of ledges to this place, which is their haven, their sanctuary.
These ledges and outcrops seem to provide a corridor across the escarpment for sure-footed animals.
These tracks here, the cloven hoof.
Those are from ibex, which is an utterly spectacular mountain goat, incredibly at ease and at home on the very steepest of slopes.
These prints are from rock hyrax, and those, likewise, are really specialised for living on pretty much vertical cliff faces.
That could well have been this morning, that's so fresh.
[bird twitters] It's incredible looking at all these tiny little bushes.
All of this mist is condensing on their leaves in droplets of water.
Everything here finds a way of clinging onto that water and using it.
That mist which has come in from the sea is one of the big reasons why there's so much life here.
This sea mist keeps the desert vegetation alive, which, in turn, is food for ibex and rock hyrax.
And where they go, predators follow.
I mean, this is an absolute thoroughfare.
That is a scrape.
This is how big cats mark their territories.
Classically, scrape would be from leopard.
That's frigging amazing!
I mean, it certainly seems like all the animals that leopard feed on are here.
Our ledge system may be completely out of bounds to human beings, but it's certainly not to animals.
I'm completely buzzing.
To be standing up here on this extraordinary ledge and seeing the signs of all the animals that have been here before us is absolutely incredible.
It's exactly what we came here for.
High above me, Hazel and John have conquered another 100 metres.
[John] Whoo!
One walkable terrace.
[Hazel] So, John, we made it to the terrace.
Cool!
Despite the mist, they've reached the halfway ledge.
Our climb is back on track.
They fix a rope and abseil back down to our camp for the night.
[Hazel] This is like the craziest abseil I've ever done!
[John] It feels like more than 100 metres.
[crickets chirping] Sleeping bag's still a little bit wet, but it is going to feel like paradise in a second.
On tough expeditions like this, it's the small things that make all the difference.
At least it's dry tonight, eh?
We have stars.
You can finally see the sky.
As the fog lifts, it feels like the summit is within reach.
I guess it's summed up everything that makes a good expedition, in that there has been literally nothing that we could have expected, so we would never have imagined in a million years that we'd spend the whole time climbing freezing cold in the fog.
We'd never have expected for there to be, you know, endless sign of a critically endangered Arabian leopard or to find a fossilised whale halfway up the rock.
It just... Those surprises, the fact that you never know what's going to happen next, is what makes expeditions so special.
That's more like it.
Sunrise!
-What's the plan for today?
-The plan for today?
-Yeah.
-Go to the top.
[both] Yeah!
It's a relief to be up above the clouds finally and to be able to see what we're taking on, isn't it?
But that brings with it the fact that you look up and go, "Urgh!"
Today, we've got a mountain to climb, literally.
We'll ascend fixed ropes up to the halfway ledge.
That's where the hard work starts.
A 50-metre scramble to the base of the huge head wall.
Then we face the most daunting section - a 150-metre vertical climb.
Above us, Khalid has finally reached the top of the plateau.
The only way on from here is a long hike to reach the remote cameras he set up along the cliff edge.
Khalid has spent 12 years studying the leopard population in the Jabal Samhan mountain range.
Every image he captures is vital.
Chance of that is we need to check first what we've got.
He's never been able to survey the steepest parts of the cliff.
We're hoping to help him fill in this missing link.
And we're on the final pitch.
[Steve] What are your thoughts, John?
My thoughts are that this is going to be a steep and nasty pitch.
-[Steve] Steep and nasty?
-Steep and nasty.
Oh, my two favourite words.
The rock here is overhanging and brittle.
Even John might struggle.
-[John] Wish me luck, guys.
-[Hazel] Good luck.
[Hazel] Nice.
[John] That one's a bit slopey, not too bad.
[Hazel] Aldo's properly got you.
[John laughs] That's some good sports action footage for you there, Keith.
[John] All a bit slopey.
[Aldo] I'm going to get flattened if you come down.
Are you happy for me to move out the way, John?
[John] Yep.
[Hazel] It's quite serious, this route.
[Keith] He's breathing quite hard.
[John puffing and groaning] It's really intimidating.
I can hear John breathing heavily and struggling with certain sections of it, and he is in a totally different league to me.
If he's finding it even remotely hard, yeah, that's not good.
[John] Oh!
Well, that was a bit tricky.
This is the most dangerous part of the wall we've faced so far.
Okay.
-Good luck, mate.
-Thank you very much, old bean.
-[Aldo] Good luck, Steven.
-[Hazel] Yeah, well done.
Aah!
Oh, shoot!
- You all right, mate?
-Yeah, okay.
Whaa!
The higher we climb, the more fragile the rock.
[John] Hang on in there.
Go on, do a long reach across rightwards now.
Aah!
Aah!
[John] That's it.
Go on, you are almost there.
Well done, that man.
Wow!
[John] You can actually climb, can't you?
[Steve] Doesn't feel like it.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much.
We're inching ever closer to the summit... where Khalid is already waiting.
John has all but completed the head wall.
Hazel and I are 40 metres below him.
And 100 metres below us are Aldo and the support team.
They can only start hauling up the kit once John has rigged their ropes.
[John] When you're ready!
-[Hazel] Okay!
-Climbing!
With Hazel right beneath me, I can't afford to lose my focus.
Oh, all this rock is horrible!
Big rock coming down!
Big rock coming down!
[Hazel] Rock!
[radio] Are you safe, over?
Yes, uh...
I moved round the corner.
So I'm safe, over.
-[Steve] This is so dangerous.
-[Hazel] That came close to me.
[Steve] Just pulled off a chunk about the size of a television.
The end cannot come soon enough.
Come on!
Come on, Backshall!
Let's have this!
It's just there!
Oh, so tired!
[he puffs] 12 metres.
Just last few moves.
Oh, John, I can see you!
Ah!
oh, and we've got a view of blue sky!
Oh!
Yes!
-Thank you, John.
-No worries, Steve.
[Steve] Thank you so much.
Thank you for keeping me safe.
[John] Another fine adventure you got me into.
[John laughs] [Steve] Wow.
[Steve] We just came all the way up there.
It's a long way.
Khalid!
Oh, I only just saw you!
Hello!
Thank you, my friend.
-Thank you so much.
-Hey, how are you?
-How am I?
Honestly?
-Yeah.
Yeah.
-I'm pretty wrecked.
-That's for you.
That is the sweetest cup of tea I have ever seen.
Mmm!
Oh, that is nectar.
That is nectar.
No one has done that steep area.
I know it's too difficult.
You have strong heart.
Strong heart.
Not quite such strong fingers, unfortunately.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Oh, I get a hug!
Thank you very much.
And thank you for...
I can't wait to sit down with Khalid and share our discoveries.
But first we need to get the whole team to the top.
All together on top.
It's not over until everybody's up.
And not everybody is.
Poor Aldo.
He's been doing all of the hard work.
All of the lugging, all of the hauling.
At last, after ten hours of hauling, Aldo, Justin and Miguel are finally up.
With the team together again, we can look at the final piece of the jigsaw, the remote cameras.
Whoa!
These are the agile ibex we saw signs of on the ledge.
And rock hyrax too, both ideal prey for a leopard.
Oh!
Ohhh!
Oh, my goodness!
Oh, it's absolutely beautiful!
Yes, come on!
Oh, that's the most amazing shot!
And it's not just one leopard.
-It's two leopards.
-Wow.
-[Justin] Could be a male.
Yeah.
-[Miguel] Coming after a female.
It looks like a male following a female, so this could be a breeding pair.
Wow!
It's making a scrape right in front of the camera.
Yeah.
It's encouraging.
The male is displaying signs he's ready to mate.
There are nearly 40 clips.
This is like gold dust.
The cameras have captured rare glimpses of the secret life of a healthy pair of leopards.
Knowing that at least two of them are doing really, really well right around where we're sitting right now is an amazing thought.
The discoveries made on this climb and on our remote camera footage will help Khalid's vital work protecting the leopards here in Jabal Samhan.
But my feelings are bittersweet.
Areas like this are becoming harder to find in our modern world.
This place is a natural fortress.
You can see it in the geography of the land.
And because we can't get here, it's a sanctuary for wildlife.
The images that we have seen of Arabian leopards wandering down these trails, critically endangered-- you know, there's only a handful of them left-- and knowing that they are surviving and thriving here in this environment is incredibly exciting.
But human beings are encroaching.
They are coming in from every side.
These last few truly wild places are everything.
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Video has Closed Captions
Clip: S1 Ep10 | 2m 21s | Steve’s journey in Oman begins with British climbers Hazel Findlay and John Arran. (2m 21s)
Video has Closed Captions
Clip: S1 Ep10 | 3m 52s | The deserts of southern Oman are home to one of the most elusive big cats on Earth. (3m 52s)
Episode 10 Preview | Oman - Desert Fortress
Video has Closed Captions
Preview: S1 Ep10 | 30s | Visit Oman’s Dhofar Mountains, where Steve Backshall encounters one of the rarest animals. (30s)
Video has Closed Captions
Clip: S1 Ep10 | 2m 49s | Steve joins Hazel and John as they inspect their climb, which will take three days. (2m 49s)
Video has Closed Captions
Clip: S1 Ep10 | 2m 58s | Steve takes the opportunity to explore the cliff camp. (2m 58s)
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