Ghorepani Poon Hill Trek Journal: The Morning the Mountains Stopped Me in My Tracks

Day 0 — Kathmandu, Late Evening

I am sitting on the edge of my bed in a small guesthouse in Thamel, bags half-packed, and I genuinely cannot sleep. Tomorrow I leave for Pokhara and then straight into the hills. I have been to Nepal once before but never really walked into it — not like this. A friend who came back from the Annapurna region last autumn kept saying, you have to go, you just have to go. I finally stopped making excuses.

My guide's name is Nam. He called this evening to confirm the pickup time. His voice was calm and unhurried in a way that already made me feel less anxious. I told him I was a little nervous. He laughed softly and said, "You will be fine. The mountain will take care of you."

I wrote that down. I don't know why, but I wrote it down.

Day 1 — Kathmandu to Pokhara

Seven hours on a tourist bus winding through the Prithvi Highway. I expected to be bored. I was not bored for a single minute.

The road follows the Trishuli River for most of the journey — a fast, green-grey river that churns between walls of rock and terraced hillside. Farmers work their fields at impossible angles. Children wave from school gates. Small roadside temples flash past the window draped in marigolds.

Pokhara arrives gently. The bus drops us near Lakeside and suddenly the whole energy changes — slower, softer, full of the smell of coffee and something frying nearby. Phewa Lake is glass-calm in the late afternoon. And there, above the town, impossibly large against the blue sky — Machhapuchhre. Fishtail Mountain. I stood on the street with my bag still on my back and just stared at it for an embarrassingly long time.

Dinner at a small restaurant near the lake. Dal bhat. First of many, Nam tells me, grinning.

Day 2 — Pokhara to Ghandruk, then Tadapani

Woke before six. Jeep ride into the hills toward Ghandruk — a traditional Gurung village that appears around a hillside bend like something out of a painting. Stone houses stacked along the ridge, prayer flags strung between rooftops, and behind it all, Annapurna South filling the entire sky.

I stopped walking three times in the first hour just to look.

The trail from Ghandruk climbs through rhododendron and oak forest. The trees are enormous here, draped in moss, and the light coming through them in the morning is the kind of light that makes you feel like you are inside a dream. My legs are already complaining a little. Nam tells me this is normal. He says it very kindly.

Tadapani by late afternoon. Sat outside the teahouse with a cup of ginger tea watching the clouds shift around Annapurna. A dog came and sat next to me as if we had always known each other.

I think I already love this place.

Day 3 — Tadapani to Ghorepani

Harder day today. The trail rolls through forested ridges and hidden valleys, climbs and drops and climbs again. My knees are starting to have opinions about the stone steps. Nam is patient and steady ahead of me, never too fast, always checking.

We passed through small settlements where life moves at a completely different pace from anything I know at home. An elderly woman spinning wool outside her doorway. A group of school children in bright uniforms walking a trail I would consider a serious hike. A man leading two loaded mules along the ridge path, all of them moving as if they have done this ten thousand times — because they have.

Arrived in Ghorepani in the early evening. The village hums with trekkers from all over the world settling in for the night, all of us here for the same reason — what happens tomorrow morning on the hill above.

Nam told me to sleep early. He said to set my alarm for 4:30. I said that seemed extreme. He smiled and said nothing.

I set my alarm for 4:30.

Day 4 — Poon Hill Sunrise and Descent to Ulleri

I don't know how to write this entry. I have been sitting here for twenty minutes trying to find the right words and I am not sure they exist.

We left in complete darkness. Headlamps on, trail winding upward through cold, still forest. My breath came out in clouds. Other trekkers moved silently around us, small bobbing lights in the dark. Nobody spoke much. There was something almost ceremonial about it.

And then the summit. Poon Hill.

The sky was still dark when we arrived but the horizon was beginning to lighten — a pale grey turning slowly, slowly to orange. And then the peaks appeared. One by one, as if they were choosing the moment to reveal themselves. Dhaulagiri first, massive and white. Then the Annapurna range — Annapurna South, Annapurna I, Nilgiri. And Machhapuchhre directly in front of us, its double summit catching the first gold light of morning like it was made specifically for this moment.

I cried. I am not going to pretend that I didn't. The man standing next to me, a retired teacher from Germany, also cried. We didn't speak. We just stood there together watching the mountains turn from grey to white to gold to blazing orange as the sun pulled itself over the horizon.

This is why people do the ghorepani poon hill trek. Not for the fitness, not for the Instagram photo, not for the achievement. For this. For standing on a hill in Nepal at dawn with strangers who suddenly feel like old friends, watching the Himalayas wake up.

The descent to Ulleri afterward was long — thousands of stone steps winding down through the forest. My knees had very strong opinions. I didn't mind at all.

Day 5 — Ulleri to Pokhara

Jeep back to Pokhara through countryside draped in morning mist. I kept the window open and watched the terraced hills roll past and felt the strange mix of tiredness and fullness that I think only comes from walking through something real.

Pokhara in the afternoon felt almost too comfortable — hot shower, clean sheets, Phewa Lake glittering outside. I walked along the lakeside at dusk and Machhapuchhre was still there above the town, still enormous, still unhurried.

I bought a cup of coffee and sat with it and thought about the last few days and didn't try to make sense of any of it.

Day 6 — Pokhara to Kathmandu

The bus back. Eight hours. The same river, the same fields, the same road — but everything looks slightly different when you are the person returning rather than the person arriving.

Nam and I said goodbye near the bus park. He shook my hand and told me to come back. I told him I would. I meant it.

I am writing this in the back of a taxi crossing Kathmandu in the evening traffic, exhausted and dusty and genuinely happy in a way that is hard to explain to anyone who hasn't walked into the mountains and let them do what they do.

The mountain took care of me, just like Nam said it would.

Come here. Walk this trail. Wake up early and climb that hill.

Trust me.