Ghorepani (9,429ft) to Poon Hill (10,531ft) to Tadapani (8,628ft), 11.2km / 7 miles
10/23/25
4:00am – alarms ring and we reluctantly swing our stiff legs out of bed. “Are you ready to climb Poon Hill?”, one voice asks, “No, not all all” the other responds. Yet we pulled on our layers of warm clothes, pulled our light packs over our shoulders and opened the door into the cold starry night. The darkness is dotted only by the stars and shimmering lights from hikers’ headlamps.
The plan is to climb up Poon Hill to watch the sun rise over the mountains, then come back down to our tea house in Ghorepani for breakfast, and then to continue on our way to Tadapani. Which meant we could leave with just the bare minimum essentials in our bags.
Almost immediately we start climbing at 4:30am, step after step. With sunrise at 6:15am and only 1.2km to the top, we’ve given ourselves plenty of time to climb the innumerable steps to the top.
We step aside to allow porters and ponies to pass. Without a proper warmup, I’m pretty winded for the first 5 or 10 minutes. An hour and 15 minutes of climbing later, we reached the summit of Poon Hill – which seems a lot less like a hill and more like a mountain to me, but what do I know? – just as the first light of day began lighting up the sky.
We each lined up on a section of the edge where we found a gap in the crowd to wait for the sunrise. Sis set up her tripod to capture a timelapse while I zipped from one side to the other trying to capture the light on the mountains all around.
I climbed the tower for a full panorama view along with 300 other people, wandered down to one side for a view of the Dhaalagir range, then zipped back over to the other side to watch the pinks and oranges appear beyond the layers of distant mountains. Then repeat.
And making friends each place I went. Including some dogs playing on the hilltop – so while everyone else was taking photos and videos of the one-in-a-lifetime view, I was of course watching the dogs.
We stayed up there until almost 7am. I could have stayed for days. (Post-edit – I can confidently say now that the trek is over, this is the most beautiful incredible view we had throughout the entire trek).
We made our way back down to the tea house in about 30 minutes, packed our bags, scarfed some breakfast, then started on our way to Tadapani.
Leaving Ghorepani, we started once again climbing stair after stair up in the opposite direction from Poon Hill. We were accompanied by masses of people heading in this same direction, a common path shared by several treks.
We climbed until we could once again see Poon Hill tower across from us, then climbed some more until we were back at the same elevation.
A bit more climbing into a forest and we were on a ridge with stunning vistas in all directions.
I found many interesting things on the path along with way, which naturally I carefully shoved in my pockets, but apparently my habit is contagious as soon my sister and Raj were also picking up small sticks and interesting things for me. Yay!
The ridge was surrounded by Rhododendron trees stretching far as the eye could see – and they were MASSIVE compared to any I’ve seen in the state. It turns out that they thrive above 2,000m / 6,500 ft, which is why they were so huge and lush up here in the foothills of the Himalayas. I can’t imagine the beauty of walking this path in the spring, with the flowers in bloom – and it makes sense suddenly why the Rhododendron is the national flower of Nepal.
The ridge walk was delightful and more remote than any path we’d yet taken. It was 3 hours after leaving Ghorepani before we reached the next settlement and sat for lunch.
Did I mention that for the last 3 hours, I’d been walking with a clothesline wrapped around my pack, socks and shirts swaying with each step? And yet everything was STILL wet from wash the night before, so we spread everything out in the sun while we waited for our food.
An hour later we were packing up our now dry clothes and starting on a looooooong descent down to Banthanti, following a stream as it cascaded down cliffs through verdant rainforest.
The trek is a bit misleading when you look at it on a map – it doesn’t necessarily show the hills you have to go up and down and up and down again as you trek from village to village.
It took us nearly 2 hours of careful descent down slick rock to reach Banthanti. From there, an estimated hour and a half of descent followed by 40 minutes of ascent.
By now, we were toast. Jello legs, sore aching feet and knees. I offered my shoulder to sis to help her descent more quickly and safely, and 30 minutes later we were at a beautiful trekkers lodge situated on a cliff. We couldn’t see much beyond the cloud we were in but it was beautiful nonetheless.
While Raj chatted with some of the folks there, we decided to cover more ground and make our way down. Not 10 minutes in, a loud crack of thunder spurred us to don our rain gear and quicken our steps.
However no rain came, just a few drops. 50 minutes later, we reached the bottom of the descent where a power station was situated, and began the climb right back up.
With Raj and I on either side, one of my sisters hands in each of ours, we practically dragged ourselves up the hill in a manner we have now dubbed Pony Service! Note that pony service is a real thing offered in some villages to get trekkers to the next village, but we like our version better. The motivation for the day was simply: Bed. Bed is waiting.
Along the way, Sumon rejoined us after having gone ahead to the tea house, a leech fell from the trees in the rain, and a few langur monkeys darted around the trees around the path. Yes, you read that right. A leech fell from the trees. More on that later.
And then, at 5pm, we were there! 12.5 hours after we started our day, we were climbing the last few steps up to our room.
I’m pretty sure we would have rather gone straight to sleep, but still we each took a quick shower before sitting for dinner. We looked…pretty much exactly how we felt. I’d been wondering before this trek which day would be the hardest for me. So far I was going strong, with some expected aches and pains, but after today I was sure day 4 would be the hardest.
ADK Trail Tales 
What a trek! We need to hear more about the falling leech! š And I love the Imgur photos/videos!
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