memories of poon hill

At 3,193 metres in altitude (around ten-and-a-half thousand feet), Poon Hill is - by my reckoning - more of a mountain than a hill. But then this is Nepal, where the slightest protuberance seems to reach for the sky and where the landscape is viewed on an entirely different scale.

At any rate, it is one of the most famous viewpoints in the world, taking in two of the highest mountains in the world - Annapurna (8,091m) and Dhaulagiri (8,167m) - as well as one of the most strikingly beautiful - Macchapuchare or 'Fish Tail'. Even more impressive to me, though, was the sheer number of dramatic peaks arrayed in front of me, set in a jagged, icy arc across my entire field of vision. Such is the monumental scale of the panorama here that, despite a colossal 5,000-metre difference in height between me and the highest summit, it still felt as though these sublime marvels were almost within touching distance.

And so it is, that during the murky pre-dawn hours of every morning throughout the trekking season, a barely distinguishable line of human forms snakes its way up the hill like a column of ants, torchlights swaying to the rhythm of the climb. These trekkers are on a kind of pilgrimage on which they aim to witness a classic Himalayan moment. As the sun rises slowly to the east, the mighty peaks begin their dawn parade, changing colours by the second as the marvellous views open up.


My own experience of this, during an eight-day trek from the tiny airstrip at Jomsom, was no less special. I was so full of anticipation the night before that it felt like Christmas Eve had done as a small child. I remember having a recurring nightmare that I had overslept and missed the sunrise for which I had been waiting all week. So I was overjoyed to be freezing cold and wide awake at 5am, ready to wrap myself up in whatever clothes I had, before venturing outside the Ghorepani 'tea house' to begin the painstaking climb in the pitch dark of night.

Once at the summit, I could feel the brooding presence of these cold, grey towers of rock all around me, like enormous skyscrapers in a dense city fog. It was a bitterly cold, interminable wait for the sun to appear but, when it did, it lit the mountains up, one by one and shade by shade - first a rosy pink on the very pinnacle, then a gathering orange, then a glittering gold. Finally, a dazzling, sparkling, brilliant white stood out, almost unreal against the clear blue sky. Not something I am ever likely to forget.