During my last year at Woodstock, 1956, several classmates decided to hike down to the Aglar River. We set off after classes Friday afternoon, but on the way we decided to establish a new campsite. After turning offTehri Road, we struck off down the khud until we came to a small clearing not far from a spring where we pitched camp.
        Dusk came early in the valleys and we had a good fire going before long. No one was in a rush to turn in but finally each of us began to waver and crawled into the tent. The tent was unbelievably crowded but that suited all of us because someone said he heard a leopard cough. An argument began over who would be lucky enough to claim the center positions.
        The next point of contention was who would venture out of the relative safety of the tent to stoke up the fire so the 'cat' would be afraid to carry one of us off for a late evening snack. Too many of us had read Jim Corbett's Man-Eating Leopard of

Free of Boundaries p. 41

Rudrapryag and were open to all sorts of silly suggestions. We finally collapsed in exhaustion and were awakened by the morning sun.
        We searched for pug marks without success, but that did not lessen our collective apprehension. Someone suggested the leopard might be lying in wait if we retraced our steps. That only left us-with the option of climbing up to Tehri Road without even so much as a goat path. I cursed that climb up the khud, slipping and sliding looking for handholds because there was no other way to go up.
        There is no short cut from Magru.

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