Poon Hill is a ridge of 3,210 metres in the Annapurna region of Nepal, in Gandaki province above the village of Ghorepani, reached in days rather than weeks, where two mountains over eight thousand metres, Dhaulagiri and Annapurna I, and the twin spire of Machapuchare catch the first light together in the most accessible great dawn of the Himalaya. The trek is the classic short one from Pokhara, four or five days on a loop through the hill villages of the Gurung and Magar, and much of the climb to Ghorepani is a staircase, thousands of stone steps including the famously steep flight above Ulleri, winding up through rhododendron and oak forest rather than open mountainside, with teahouses at every stage; Ghorepani, where trekkers sleep below the hill, means horse water, a spot where the mule and horse caravans on the old trade routes stopped to drink, and the hill takes its name from the Pun, a Magar community of these hills who once grazed cattle on the ridge. Well before dawn the trekkers climb the last hour by headlamp and crowd the metal viewing tower at the top, stamping against the cold with tea from the hut, waiting for the sun.
The light arrives on the summits first, Dhaulagiri to the west and then the whole Annapurna wall, gold and then white, with the deep gorge of the Kali Gandaki between the two giants, the deepest valley on Earth by some measures, and Machapuchare's fishtail to the east. In March and April the forest between Hille and Ghorepani becomes a tunnel of rhododendron, dozens of species, from tree-sized crimson blooms to pale pink and white higher up, the national flower of Nepal covering whole hillsides on the descent, and once the monsoon haze lifts, October and November give the sharpest views. The loop returns by Tadapani and Ghandruk, a Gurung village of slate roofs facing Annapurna South. Poon Hill is the Himalaya's easiest front row, and the dawn from it is the whole reason.