From mule trains to a sunrise crowd
Ghorepani's saddle sits on an old trade route linking the Kali Gandaki valley, the main highway of the salt trade with Tibet, to the hills and markets of the south. Caravans of mules and ponies carried salt, wool and goods up and down, and the spring water here made it a natural halt. For generations the place was little more than a seasonal camp and cattle sheds, with families living in villages lower down.
Trekkers began walking through in the 1970s, and lodges followed. The hill above, with its unbroken view of Dhaulagiri and the Annapurnas, became Poon Hill, and the name is usually said to come from the Pun, the Magar clan whose villages cover these ridges. As new roads replaced the old trade path, the village lived more and more on tourism, and today almost every building is a lodge.
The Pun villages around the hill have their own modern story. In Nangi, below the ridge, teacher Mahabir Pun began connecting remote villages to the internet with wireless relays in the early 2000s, work later recognised by the Ramon Magsaysay Foundation. Roads now reach Ulleri and beyond, shortening the climb, but the dawn walk up Poon Hill is the same as it was.
