31 July: Gala – Budhi Track – Part 5 – Lamari to Budhi

Puran Singh, the guide, was quite ahead of me when he suddenly halted, turned around and beckoned me forward quickly. “Kya hua?”, I asked as I started running. He put a finger on his lips and asked me to be quiet. When I reached him, he was crouching on the ground. He pointed underneath the bushes on the side of the road. I first saw a flash of yellow. Then I saw a little face topped by 2 tiny ears. What a cute cat! I must’ve said that aloud. Puran Singh was scandalized. “Cat! That’s a leopard cub!” he exclaimed! “Wow!” I was fascinated.

I waved my arms to ask the others to hurry up. As 3-4 of the others caught up with us, the cub defiantly stared back at us. But when Puran Singh lifted a few branches to get a photo the cub disappeared into the bushes. I was suddenly struck by a doubt. “Puran Singh, if this cub’s here, where’s his mom?” “Must be round somewhere”, he replied coolly. “What!” I squawked. “Have you gone nuts? We are standing here admiring the cub while his mom must be licking her chops!” I now remembered Man-eaters of Kumaon and Jim Corbett and realized only then that, hell, we are in Kumaon. Brilliant, Watson!

We saw neither hide nor hair of a leopard again. But that evening, the sight of that cute little cub acted like a shot of adrenaline and I literally flew over the track.

But I was stumped when we reached the rock slide. A furious mountain stream had already changed course and was now directly flowing across our route. It was at least 10 feet wide and so fast that to step into it would’ve been suicide. There were 2-3 big rocks jutting out of the water. Puran Singh pushed another rock into the stream close to the edge and jumped onto it. “Now step on this rock when I go to the next one,” he said. “And hurry; there may be a fresh slide any time.” He gave me a hand as I followed him. Sushrut was right behind me. I was scared. Period. The gradient was so steep it was difficult to stand up straight. I kept expecting a rock to fall on my head anytime. The whole ordeal must’ve taken 2 or 3 minutes, but it felt more like hours.

Once we’d crossed the stream, we could see the original track somewhere ahead but there was no way of reaching it directly. Puran Singh told us to descend along the rock slide and climb up zigzag from the river side. “And be quick. Before this thing moves again. Go in twos, don’t wait for anyone else. Stop only after you reach the track. Go!” Sachin and I raced down and then up and finally halted, clutching our sides and panting. We waited only to see the next 2 or 3 heads appear and started moving immediately. We were still far from the camp.

We trudged along the track as it got darker by the minute. Everyone was nearly exhausted. It was only the 2nd day and we had yet to get acclimatized. The Malpa camp being inoperative, there was no option but to cover the distance in one day. By the time we saw the sign post for Budhi, we were at the end of our tether. Even then the camp was a km away. Finally we touched base at 7 pm. The glasses of orange Rasna seemed like nectar.

But the 2 senior members had yet to come. When they arrived at 7.30 pm we gave them a standing ovation.