The monkey above the clouds.

The Yunnan snub-nosed monkey was described from a specimen in the 1890s and then lost to science for most of a century: a black-and-white, pink-lipped, bearded monkey living above the clouds, rumour more than fact until field surveys reached the fir forests of far north-west Yunnan. Today it is one of China's twenty most endangered vertebrates — around 3,000 animals in a corridor less than 200 kilometres long — and the Baima Snow Mountain reserve, founded in 1983, holds the majority: more than 2,300 monkeys, a population that has climbed steadily since the reserve began.

Xiangguqing, a side valley near Tacheng on the reserve's southern edge, is the one place on earth a visitor meets this species. Not in a cage and not a feeding station in the zoo sense: a wild troop of 69 animals, in nine to eleven family units, moves through the valley forest and is followed daily by ranger teams who have spent decades earning its tolerance. Between nine and eleven each morning, from an open meadow, the troop comes down through the firs. Everything else in this guide is about making that morning work.