Tadapani (8,628ft) to Lower Sinuwa (7,677ft), 12km / 7.5 miles
10/24/25
We haven’t even been here for a week but it feels like a month. Our schedule has us going to sleep around 8pm and waking up around 5am.
At least that means catching a nice sunrise in the mornings.
We arrived in the rain the night before so had no idea what the view might be like from this little village. Imagine our surprise when we walked out the door of our room to this view.
We took our time getting up, packed our bags, and set for breakfast at 6:30. By 7am, we were on our way.
Today has us going 12km to a town called Sinuwa. We will descend 800ft down from Tadapani to Siprung, cross Kimrong River, then climb right back up the other side of the gorge to Chhromrong, then allllll the way back down, over Khola river, and back up to Sinuwa.
The descent was as always tough on the knees and seemed never-ending. Sis and I developed a rhythm of descending the steep stairs with one of her hands on my shoulder, moving in tandem. Which seemed to help, but it did take us 2.5 hours to reach the bottom still.
One particular spot had us rolling in laughter when she seemingly aimed her foot straight for a fresh pile of poo right in the path.
At some point on the way down, our guide Raj left us alone for a few minutes. I don’t remember why, but I do remember the shenanigans we got up to when left alone. Observe: Instagram vs Reality.
At the bottom of the stairs, we excitedly crossed a suspension bridge over the river one by one, then started climbing right back up straight away.
Somehow I spotted a little creature jumping around faaaar below on the edge of the river – a weasel!
Climbing up was as difficult for our little troupe as climbing down, especially under the heat of the sun. So again we employed our own version of Pony Service to power up the hill.
When we reached the top, there was just a few more flights of stairs, so I took sis’s pack and ran ahead to our lunch spot atop a hill.
Lunch was a nice break from the up and down of the day, though I sparked suspicion when I referred to “pop” as “soda” – New York has slowly beaten the midwest out of me and it has made me SUSPECT.
After lunch in Ghurjung, the next 2.5 hours to Chhomrong were relatively flat with little ups and downs all the way.
With the sun beating down hard and sucking away our life force, we made dashes from shady spot to shady spot, winding our way along the ridge. From high above, we could see Jhinu Danda – our last stop on this trek – faaaaaaar below.
The motivation for the day to get us up each hill of stairs was that, who knows? There could be ICE CREAM up there! Most likely there were just more stairs, but though the chances were low they were not zero that there could be ice cream up there. Spoiler alert – it was just more stairs each time.
Writing this during dinner at 7:30pm, I can’t remember much from the day besides stairs, cows, “maybe there’s ice cream?!”, stairs, ponies, stairs, puppies.
So any stairs, in case you haven’t realized. When eventually we reached Chhomrong, we looked across a stunning valley, distant waterfalls, and learned that the village almost directly across from where we were standing was the objective……..after going allllllll the way down, crossing a suspension bridge, and then going allllllll the way right back up.
According to Raj, this should just take an hour and a half total. But for us, it took that long just to descend to the suspension bridge.
And the same amount of time to come back up, dodging men on ponies driving them at an absolutely mad pace up the mountain relentlessly. Hand-in-hand we climbed each step one at a time and finally reached our tea house at 6pm, 11 hours after starting.
This was the toughest day yet. Following a long day 3, we were exhausted and feeling it in our muscles. I was getting some shooting pains down my leg from a tight hip, so after we did a bit of laundry and had dinner, I rolled out my tight calves and hips with my nalgene, and passed out for the night.
ADK Trail Tales 