Early mornings in the mountains

Dinesh Verma

Early mornings in mountains never fail to throw up surprises. As usual, the blue whistling thrush woke us up around 5.30 am. Quickly we got ready for a recce of walking trail towards a temple which would end at Binsar. The initial stretch was a dirt track going to nearby Thikana village. As we started hiking up the hill a barking deer called. Ignoring it we moved ahead, in a few minutes the calls became more frequent and I asked my staff to be careful. I was sure there is some predator around but as the calls were from distant we kept walking.

Around 5 minutes later we reached a bend from where we had to leave the dirt track and take a forest path over the ridge. Here we decided to have a sip of lemon tea as the track was wide and ridge on both sides. One of the staff patted my back and whispered “Sir, bagh aas paas hi hai” and indicated the pugmarks on the dirt track. We all were frightened and thrilled at the same time. These were fresh pugmarks of a leopard. The guy was on a prowl and after walking on the track from the opposite side, crossed over at the bend and went down the ridge. We quickly moved to the other side of the ridge. I believe we missed it by a few minutes !! Hopping to see a leopard on foot someday.

The writer is a tourism specialist