Big Open

As the gorge narrowed to barely the width of their equipment-laden rickshaws, the four men stood in the icy water, looking downstream at a five-foot waterfall and then up 100 feet of rock wall at a sliver of Tibetan sky. For weeks, they had pulled the carts across some of the planet's most remote terrain, but it looked as if this might be the end of their quest. With food tightly rationed and another hundred miles to go, their lives might depend on their next decision, but all four could sense they were close to their goal -- the calving grounds of the chiru, an elusive, endangered antelope whose delicate wool, shahtoosh, has for centuries been woven into shawls that command prices that can approach $20,000 apiece.