Poon Hill (3195m)

There are two routes from Tatopani. The more popular route is the one that goes downhill to Beni, but we took the one that goes uphill to Ghorepani. The reason is that from Ghorepani, you can climb a few hundred meters up to Poon Hill and see an amazing sunrisse/sunset amongst the tallest mountains in the Annapurnas. Since we were both feeling pretty good in the morning, we woke up at 5 AM and hiked up to Poon Hill for sunrise. The sweet dog from Marpha joined us for the 45 minute climb in the cold and dark. We were following other people in our group who apparently have longer legs and better cardio capacity because we were both huffing and puffing by the time we got to the top!
We reached our destination and climbed up to the top of a viewing platform and waited for the sun to rise. Down below we could see headlamps of trekkers also heading up for the spectacular view. There were probably 50 or so people, but Prem tells me that in high season there is well over 200! We stood there for about an hour or so, and then the sun started coming up – it took all of 30 seconds but it was an amazing scene. It was hard to capture the beauty of it on film. We were surrounded by mountain after mountain, and many rolling hills in between that seemed to cast one foggy shadow over another.
The walk back down was much easier and probably took 15 minutes. Eric and I rejoiced knowing that Poon Hill was truly the last climb uphill that we’d have to do on this trek. It was worth the trip to Acton (or Poon Hill).