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The equator runs across the scorched plains of east Africa. This is as far from the poles as you can get, but ice and snow are here too - up in the mountains. Dawn in east Africa on the high slopes of Mount Kenya, 4,000 metres up. The temperature is just beginning to creep above freezing and the ice begins to thaw.

Every continent on earth has such high snowfields. North of the equator in the 800-mile-long European Alps, the cold endures for months. Few animals live up here in the high mountains. But chamois, a kind of mountain goat, are here and they are giving birth.

This provides an opportunity for the Alps’ greatest aerial predator, the golden eagle. These parents have a three-week-old chick and it needs to be fed several times a day. To do that, they have to hunt.

Winters in the Alps are daunting. But in other mountain ranges, the challenges are even harder. In the Far East, warm wet winds blow in across the Sea of Japan. As they meet the 3,000-metre-high Japanese Alps, they are forced upwards. As the moist air rises, it freezes and the water droplets they carry turn into snow.

In the mountains, 13 metres of snow can fall in just a few months. It is the snowiest place on earth. Japanese macaques can live at altitudes up to one-and-a-half thousand metres, higher than almost any other primate.

Temperatures here can reach as low as minus 20 degrees Celsius. But here, warm volcanic pools are always ready and waiting. A nice hot bath even lowers their stress hormones for them just as it does with us. Admission to this spa, however, is tightly controlled. The high-ranking females dictate who is allowed in and who will be left out in the cold.

In the South Pacific, on the islands of New Zealand, one highly intelligent creature has learned how to take advantage of the volatile nature of mountains - the kea, a species of parrot. It is the only one of its family that can live above the snow line.

The Andes, in South America. Rivalled only by the Himalaya in length, it stretches for over 4,500 miles down towards the Antarctic.
At its southernmost end, in winter, the land is shrouded in darkness for almost 15 hours a day. The sun remains so low in the sky that it brings little warmth, and temperatures regularly sit below freezing.

Here, at this time of the year, a predator has to hunt when it is so dark that only a thermal camera can make its activities visible to our eyes - the puma. The only substantial targets are a kind of llama - guanaco.
An adult stands five feet tall and is twice the puma’s weight.
But this female, however, has one advantage - excellent night vision.
If she can get within five metres of a guanaco, she stands a chance of launching an attack. But the guanaco do have a very acute sense of smell and excellent hearing.

The lower slopes of the Andes are harsh but climb higher and the mountains become other worldly. Their altitude prevents rain clouds from blowing in from the east whilst another lower range nearer the west coast prevents rain coming in from the Pacific Ocean. This creates between them one of the driest high-altitude deserts on earth, the Atacama. There is, nonetheless, a lake here, a volcanic one that is filled with extremely salty water from underground; and this attracts one of the last kind of bird you might expect to find high in the mountains - flamingos. They come here each summer and nest and raise their young, taking advantage of the lake's plentiful algae.

Hidden within the bamboo forests of western China is a hot and bothered male giant panda. He has spent the winter sheltering lower down the valley, but now it’s early summer and his thick coat that protected him throughout the winter is making his life intolerable.
He needs to reach the cold of the higher slopes, but before he can starts the ascent, he needs a good meal to give him the necessary energy.

Giant pandas eat almost nothing except bamboo. But bamboo is so low in calories that he needs to spend ten hours a day eating. With breakfast over, he begins his climb to higher ground. But in no time at all, he’s hungry again. This is going to be a long journey. And it may be an even longer one in the near future. As climate change raises the temperature in these mountains, giant pandas may well need to climb higher and higher to find cooler conditions.

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