Ghorepani From Poon Hill
The Ghorepani / Poon Hill / Ghandruk Circuit is another great segment of the Annapurna Circuit that can be done on it’s own as a small trek or combined with the Jomsom Trek. If you were energetic you could cover it in as little as 4 days – I’m lazy and like to enjoy the view so I took a week.
Starting off in Pokhara, you get a bus or taxi to the grotty little roadside village of Nayapul. You probably won’t want to hang around here too long – it’s not exactly Nepal’s prettiest village. A 20 minute walk down the river brings you to Birethanti (that you can see here) where the scenery improves dramatically.
From there it’s an uphill walk into the forest and through the villages of Matathanti and Sudame. Along the way, you pass through typically beautiful low-altitude Nepali scenery; lush green rice paddies, dense forest and the occasional waterfall. Although this isn’t a particularly strenuous ascent, the low altitude means it can get fiercely hot in the midday sun so make sure you’ve got plenty of water handy. Alternatively, you can do what I do and stop for a cuppa in pretty much every village. The Mira in Matathanti is a nice spot for this – chatty owners and constant mule-trains jingling past made me linger for an hour or so.
This section doesn’t get too steep until you reach the aptly-named Hille, where it veers up a seemingly never-ending set of steps. The reward for this climb is the friendly village of Tikhedunga; a nice place to spend the night. I bumped into my mate Ken here who recommended the Chandra Guesthouse – as with all of his recommendations it turned out to be a cracker – very cheap (my room was NRs. 75, a mere £0.55 a night) and the curry was great. It’s not a bad idea to spend a night here if you’ve got the time as the next day is an absolute killer.
After Tikhedunga is the trek’s steepest ascent – up, up and up some more on a stone staircase of 3437 steps. Yes, 3437 steps: I counted every single one of the bastards. This is best tackled early in the morning before the sun makes it even more unbearable. Some people do this on their first day, but then some people go all the way to Ghorepani on their first day, too. Some people, as if it needs to be said, are totally mental. Once you reach the Annapurna View Lodge and stop for a much-needed drink you’re over the worst and it’s probably another 1000 or so steps from here.
At the top of this climb is the village of Ulleri where I collapsed into the first guesthouse I could find – the Super View. It wasn’t the most welcoming place that I stayed in on the trip – the bedbugs were savage and the lady that ran it seemed to delight in informing you that none of the items on the menu were available – but exhaustion demanded that I stay there for the night. At NRs. 100 (£0.75) a night I’m hardly complaining, though, and the Dhaal Bhaat was good from here. A little further on in the village (upwards, inevitably) is the lovely Green Hill View where I stopped for a brew the next day and got such a warm welcome that I wished I’d spent the night there.
Mercifully, the next day isn’t such a climb – the walk up to Ghorepani is a slow ascent that only really gets tiring towards the end of the day. And that’s if you’re as unfit as me. It’s a nice walk, too – as you near Ghorepani you enter a rhododendron forest (it flowers in April / May) that’s really beautiful. As soon as I reached Ghorepani and got my first great mountain view of the trek I knew I’d stay for a couple of nights. Another friendly welcome at the Snowland Lodge confirmed this as a good idea. I treated myself to a room with it’s own bathroom and hot shower (NRs. 300 a night – about £2.30), put my aching feet up and tucked into such delicacies as Roast Chicken washed down with Hot Chocolate with a slug of Khukri Rum in it. Wonderful.
The done thing in Ghorepani is to get up at dawn and climb to the top of Poon Hill to watch the sunrise over an epic Himalayan panorama. If it’s a clear day, you’ll see Daulaghiri to the West, Macchapuchre to the East and the entire Annapurna Range nestled in the middle. You can see a fraction of it in the photo at the top of this page – I don’t have a wide-angle lens so couldn’t get all of it in the picture. It’s absolutely stunning – every superlative that’s been chucked in it’s direction in the past is totally deserved.
When I visited Poon Hill, tourism was just beginning to recover since the 2006 April uprising so it was relatively quiet. Others have told me that it can get very busy here when Nepal’s political situation is less volatile. If this is the case, try the hike up the ridge towards Deurali instead – it’s on the way to Tadapani if you’re continuing to Ghandruk – where you’ll get an equally good view minus the tourist hordes. They’ll all be along in an hour or two by which time it’ll probably have clouded over and you should be settling down to a chai break in Deurali.
Ghorepani to Tadapani is a good day’s walk – the uphill stretch to Deurali mentioned above can be tiring but the great views compensate. After that it’s a relatively easy stretch, although the steep descent after Deurali is pretty tough on the knees. Just before Tadapani there’s a will-sapping climb up another set of steps that, at the end of a long day’s walking, seem designed to polish off the terminally unfit like me. The way to avoid this to call it a day at the fantastic Clean View Lodge (pictured) just before the hill. Here you’ll be met by lovely people and get to relax in beautiful surroundings. There can’t be many places in the world where you get a mountain view like this for a mere NRs. 50 (£0.35, unbelievably) a night. I had one of the best Chicken Curries I’ve ever eaten here, too – it’s great taste almost certainly due to the fact that it was still clucking about 30 minutes before I ate it.
The stiff climb to Tadapani is a bit easier first thing the next day after a good night’s rest. It’s another one best attempted in the cool of the morning with legs that aren’t totally seizing up on you. Do it early enough and you should reach Tadapani before the clouds roll in and obscure the great views of Macchapuchre. This is one of the first places on the trek where you get to see it’s true ‘Fish-Tailed’ shape – almost unrecognisable from the triangular peak you see from Pokhara.
If Tadapani doesn’t tempt you into a tea-break (I succumbed, obviously) then it’s a very pleasant downhill walk as the trail meanders through the forest to Baisi Kharka. Here there are more nice tea-houses with hosts eager for a natter. The lad that works at the Hillside Paradise has an encyclopaedic knowledge of English Premiership football and this was enough to encourage me to take an hour’s Dhaal Bhaat-break. From there it’s an abrupt descent further into more sub-tropical forest / jungle towards Ghandruk. In April it was pretty humid here – another part of the trek where you’ll need lots of water.
When you reach Ghandruk, my advice is to stay at the top of the town where there are still traditional lodges. Further down the hill are a collection of unsightly three-storey concrete buildings that are about as incongruous as it gets. The Snow Land Lodge that you can see here is one of the best guesthouses I’ve ever stayed in. Panoramic views of Annapurna South, Hiunchuli and Macchapucchre, warm hospitality, great food and a comfy bed all for NRs. 100 a night (£0.75). An incredible place that I can’t recommend enough. If you want your own bathroom and hot shower then feel free to stay at one of the ugly places in the lower part of the town – you’ll really be missing out.
If you’ve got the time, Ghandruk’s a great place to have a day off – one look at the Snow Land Lodge and I knew I’d be staying for an extra night. I wasn’t particularly tired at this point – it just seemed a shame to rattle through such an obviously scenic spot. Of course, if you’re a fully paid-up member of the ‘we-must-cover-at-least-15-kilometres-a-day’ brigade then you’ll probably just power on through. And then your trek will be over, you’ll have to go home, go back to work and I’ll still be halfway up a mountain enjoying myself. But each to their own and all that.
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